Preamble

The House met at a Quarter before Three of the clock, Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair.

PRIVATE BUSINESS.

Reigate Corporation Bill (by Order),

Second Reading deferred till To-morrow.

MEMBER SWORN.

Sir Clement Montague Barlow, Salford Borough (South Division), took the Oath and signed the Roll.

Oral Answers to Questions — RUSSIA.

PEASANT INSURRECTIONS.

Lieutenant-Colonel Sir SAMUEL HOARE: 1.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he can give the House any information as to the fifty-seven peasant risings that took place against the Bolshevist authorities in the month of November?

The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for FOREIGNAFFAIRS (Mr. Cecil Harmsworth): It is reported that during November from eighty to one hundred peasant insurrections took place in Russia against the Bolshevik authorities, the reason being that the peasants refused to be conscripted or to permit their grain, horses, and cattle to be confiscated. The different areas involved in these insurrections varied from a few villages to whole districts. They were specially numerous in the north, and in the Nikolski district of the Vologda province it is stated that they could not be put down for several weeks. It is reported that these risings have been suppressed with extreme rigour, and that frequently entire villages have been destroyed by artillery fire, and the inhabitants exterminated.

Sir S. HOARE: Does not the hon. Gentleman think that the fact of these
risings taking place every month is very good evidence that the Bolshevik Government is universally detested in Russia?

Mr. SPEAKER: That is a matter upon which the hon. Member can form his own opinion.

Oral Answers to Questions — BRAZIL (IMPORT DUTY ON EARTHENWARE).

Mr. SEDDON: 2.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether representations have been made to the Brazilian Government with reference to the rise of 400 per cent. Customs Duty on earthenware; and whether he is aware that this duty has already inflicted loss upon this industry in this country by stop ping all shipments actually made for the special Brazilian market?

Mr. HARMSWORTH: Yes, Sir. His Majesty's Government have made representations to the Brazilian Government, and the latter have agreed to suspend the application of the new import duties on earthenware pending the revision by the Brazilian Congress of the new Budget Law. His Majesty's Government hope that the increases of duty will be either abandoned or else very substantially modified.

Oral Answers to Questions — MR. HERZOG.

Major NEWMAN: 3.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether Mr. Herzog, a member of the Union Parliament of South Africa, has had a warship placed at his disposal to convey him to this country and subsequently to proceed to Paris; and can he say what is the nature of Mr. Herzog's business which necessitates this expense on behalf of the British taxpayers?

The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for the COLONIES (Lieutenant-Colonel Amery): I am not aware that any expense would have been caused to the British taxpayer, as the "Minerva" was coming home in any case. I understand, however, that the offer has been declined.

Major NEWMAN: Would it not be possible for Mr. Herzog to travel on some trading or neutral steamer?

Lieutenant-Colonel AMERY: There are no facilities available.

Oral Answers to Questions — GLEN LOMOND SANATORIUM.

Colonel Sir ALEXANDER SPROT: 4.
asked the Secretary of State for War when will the Glen Lomond Sanatorium, in Fife, which is at present in use by the War Department, be handed back to the county for use as a sanatorium for tuberculosis?

The SECRETARY of STATE for WAR (Mr. Churchill): Orders have been given to evacuate this sanatorium at once, the number of patients being now sufficiently reduced to admit of this being done.

Oral Answers to Questions — MILITARY SERVICE.

WOMEN DOCTORS.

Mr. LYNN: 5.
asked the Secretary of State for War whether women doctors employed by the War Office who are graded and rank for purposes of pay, and perform the duties of officers, have been refused commissioned rank and permission to wear badges of rank; and whether he proposes to take any steps to carry out the promise of the Prime Minister to remove all existing inequalities in the present law as between men and women?

Mr. CHURCHILL: I would refer my hon. Friend to the reply which I gave yesterday to a similar question put by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Islington (East), to the effect that it is not proposed to introduce legislation on this point during the present Session.

TYNESIDE SCOTTISH BRIGADE COMMITTEE.

Major BARNES: 9.
asked the Secretary of State for War if it is intended to accept the offer of the Tyneside Scottish Brigade Committee to raise a battalion of Tyneside Scottish made by letter to him on the 3rd February, 1914?

Mr. CHURCHILL: The Tyneside Scottish Committee have been informed that the inclusion of new units in the Regular peace Army would necessitate an expansion of establishment. If any increase in the establishment of the Regular peace Army is contemplated at a later date the claims of the Tyneside Scottish will receive sympathetic consideration.

MR. PHILIPS PRICE.

Commander BELLAIRS: 11.
asked the Secretary of State for War whether
Philips Price was liable for military service when he went to Russia; and, if so, on what grounds was he exempted or by whose request?

Mr. CHURCHILL: I understand that Mr. Philips Price left this country in November, 1914. The latter part of my hon. and gallant Friend's question does not therefore arise.

Commander BELLAIRS: 68.
asked the Home Secretary whether he is aware that Philips Price is to be prosecuted if he returns to this country; and whether this man is the holder of any honourable post such as justice of the peace for a county and director of any great industrial undertaking?

The SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. Shortt): In reply to the first part of the question, I am not aware that a decision has yet been taken. As regards the second part of the question, I understand that Mr. Price is a justice of the peace for the county of Gloucester, but I am not aware whether he is a director of any industrial undertaking. His name does not appear in the Directory of Directors.

Commander BELLAIRS: Has my right hon. Friend taken any steps to deprive this man of the J.P.'ship?

Mr. MacVEAGH: Would it not be better to wait until he is convicted?

Mr. SHORTT: I am not aware that I have any power to do so.

DEMOBILISED YOUTHS.

Major NALL: 23.
asked the Secretary of State for War whether, in view of the definite policy now laid down regarding the demobilisation of students and repatriated prisoners of war, he will recall to the Colours those youths who were demobilised during a period of official uncertainty, and thereby gained an advantage over their comrades abroad?

Mr. CHURCHILL: I regret I cannot entertain my hon. and gallant Friend's suggestion to recall to the Colours soldiers already demobilised under regulations for the time being in force. There has been no discrimination in favour of soldiers serving at home.

CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTOR.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: 66.
asked the Home Secretary whether he is aware that
Charles Cheetham, a conscientious objector, who has been in prison or detention for two years and four months, has been in a very poor state of health for some time, and is now on the verge of a complete breakdown; and whether he will order his final release from Maidstone Prison on health grounds?

Mr. SHORTT: This prisoner having reduced himself to a weak state by refusing for several days to take food has been temporarily released under the Prisoners (Temporary Discharge for Ill-health) Act. This is no sufficient ground for an unconditional discharge.

Oral Answers to Questions — BRITISH EXPEDITIONARY FORCE IN FRANCE.

BRONCHIAL PNEUMONIA.

Lieut.-Colonel WALTER GUINNESS: 6.
asked the Secretary of State for War whether the number of cases and deaths from bronchial pneumonia which occurred in the British Expeditionary Force during the first week of February?

Mr. CHURCHILL: The number of admissions to hospital from bronchial pneumonia among the British Expeditionary Force in France during the week ending 8th February was 235; and the number of deaths was 84.

Lieutenant-Colonel GUINNESS: Does that include a number of cases which contracted the disease in hospital?

Mr. CHURCHILL: I could not say without notice.

Lieutenant-Colonel GUINNESS: 7.
asked the Secretary of State for War whether at many casualty clearing stations and general hospitals in the British Expeditionary Force bronchial-pneumonia cases are being treated in the same wards as cases of measles, sprained ankles, and other complaints; whether many of the latter are being infected by bronchial pneumonia while in hospital; and whether steps may be taken to secure the isolation of such cases in future?

Mr. CHURCHILL: Strict instructions were issued in October last as to the isolation of broncho-pneumonia cases, and I am informed as a result of special inquiry that these instructions have been strictly complied with. If my hon. and gallant
Friend can furnish me with any specific instances of casualty clearing stations or general hospitals where these cases are not properly isolated I shall be glad to have them investigated immediately.

Lieutenant-Colonel GUINNESS: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that it is generally said that these cases are treated with no more care or warmth than ordinary surgical cases?

Mr. CHURCHILL: I do not think that is true, because very strict instructions have been given as to the care with which they are to be treated, but I shall be quite ready to receive from my hon. and gallant Friend any definite facts relating to individual cases, giving dates, names, and localities.

Oral Answers to Questions — DEMOBILISATION.

GENERAL OFFICERS.

Lieutenant-Colonel W. GUINNESS: 8.
asked the Secretary of State for War whether he will give the number of general officers who have ceased to be employed since the beginning of demobilisation?

Mr. CHURCHILL: The number is twenty-nine, of whom ten are now employed regimentally (i.e., not as general officers).

COLONIALS IN ENGLISH REGIMENTS.

Mr. CHARLES WHITE: 16.
asked the Secretary for War whether he is aware that many Englishmen are still serving in different theatres of war who came over at their own expense from the Colonies and joined English regiments in the first months of the War; whether he is aware that Colonial troops who came over a long time after have been demobilised some time; and whether he will at once inquire into the case of Sapper J. T. Carthew, No. 279014, No. 4 Railway Survey Section, Royal Engineers, care of R.C.E. 4, British Expeditionary Force, a civil engineer who gave up an important position in Canada in August, 1914, came to England at his own expense and joined an English regiment, has been twice wounded and has had typhoid and trench fever, and notwithstanding repeated application is unable to obtain his discharge?

Mr. CHURCHILL: I would refer to the answer given to my Noble and gallant
Friend the Member for Horsham and Worthing on the 18th of February. Officers and soldiers of the Imperial Army claiming repatriation overseas, whose claims have been or may be approved under existing Regulations, are not being retained for the Armies of Occupation unless they so desire, and will be repatriated as the exigencies of the Service and facilities of transportation permit, irrespectively of the date they joined the Colours, or of age, or whether they enlisted voluntarily or were called up under the Military Service Acts, 1916. A considerable number have already been repatriated. Sapper Carthew would appear from the information given by my hon. Friend to be eligible for repatriation, and if so and his claim is approved, he will no doubt be included in a dispersal draft without any delay.

ARMY DOCTORS AND NURSES.

Mr. LYLE: 18.
asked the Secretary for War if he will give the number of doctors and of nurses employed by the Army on 11th November, 1918; if he will state the number of doctors and nurses employed by the Army at the present time; what were the proportions of doctors and nurses to the mobilised forces on 11th November, 1918; and what are these proportions now?

Mr. CHURCHILL: There were 11,193 doctors and 23,931 nurses employed in the Army on 11th November last, and 9,593 doctors and 20,141 nurses are at present serving. The proportion of doctors in November was 1 to 318 all ranks, and is now 1 to 314 all ranks. The proportion of nurses in November was 1 to 148 all ranks, and is now 1 to 149 all ranks. I would point out that the demobilisation of doctors and nurses bears little relationship to the demobilisation of the Army as a whole; it is dependent at the bases and at home on the discharge of the hospital population and in the field upon reduction in units and formations. A very large number of civil doctors and nurses who were employed in the Voluntary Aid Detachment hospitals which have been closed, and who have been released, are not included in the figures I have given. As I said the other day, I have not been at all satisfied with the rate at which the demobilisation of doctors is proceeding, and I have given very strong orders that all efforts are to be made to demobilise
doctors at an increasing rate to make sure, now that the fighting is stopped, we have not a great number of medical men waiting at our establishments overseas who are more urgently needed at home.

Mr. LYLE: Does the right hon. Gentleman fully realise that owing to the influenza epidemic in this country hundreds of people—I do not think I am exaggerating—are dying for want of nursing. The point of the question is the lack of nurses as well as doctors.

Mr. CHURCHILL: Yes, Sir, I do realise that, and now that fighting has stopped the rate of demobilisation of doctors and nurses must be greatly increased.

Sir C. KINLOCH-COOKE: Will the right hon. Gentleman consult the Admiralty to see that similar steps are taken by them?

ARMY OF OCCUPATION (OFFICERS' WIVES).

Colonel BURN: 21.
asked the Secretary for War whether medical officers who, after general demobilisation, volunteer to serve with the Army of Occupation will be allowed to bring their wives to the towns in which they are serving?

Mr. CHURCHILL: This point is being considered. I will let my hon. and gallant Friend know the decision arrived at.

ROYAL ARMY SERVICE CORPS.

Mr. KENNEDY JONES: 22.
asked the Secretary for War whether he will state the number of officers and the number of non-commissioned officers and men of the Royal Army Service Corps, Motor Transport, who have been demobilised since 11th November, 1918; and at what date it is expected all those in this particular service, who joined up before 1stJanuary, 1916, will be demobilised?

Mr. CHURCHILL: The number of officers and other ranks of the Royal Army Service Corps (Mechanical Transport) demobilised since 11th November, 1918, to the end of February, 1919, is approximately 600 officers and 34,650other ranks. It is not possible to say definitely when the demobilisation of the corps referred to will be completed, but it is hoped that those who are eligible for demobilisation under existing Regulations will have been released by the 1st of May, except in so far as they may be temporarily required for the military machinery of demobilisation.

Lieutenant-Colonel GUINNESS: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that much feeling has been caused owing to the preference given in demobilisation to certain home service corps, and will he avoid the giving of any such preference in the future?

Mr. CHURCHILL: I do not think that any particular preference was given. These Army Service Corps are necessary for the general process of demobilisation, and they are being held irrespective of length of service wherever so required.

MINISTERS OF RELIGION.

Mr. GIDEON MURRAY: 27.
asked the Secretary of State for War whether he will consider the desirability of issuing instructions to the effect that any minister of religion, serving in the Army in any other capacity than as a chaplain, who desires to resume his calling in civil life, and whose return is desired by the authorities of the church to which he belongs, should be granted immediate demobilisation?

Lieutenant-Colonel Sir J. HOPE: 43.
asked the Secretary of State for War whether ministers of religion who are serving in the Army in other capacities than that of chaplains can now be released?

Mr. CHURCHILL: The answer is in the affirmative, provided they are eligible for demobilisation under existing Regulations.

Sir J. HOPE: Will no special consideration be given to these incumbents of churches who are not serving in the capacity of chaplains in the Army, who are required to look after their churches at home; and is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there are forty ministers of the Church of Scotland so employed at the present time who are urgently required in Scotland?

Mr. CHURCHILL: I hope I shall not be pressed at this stage to make exceptions. Under this scheme the hardship is mitigated by the fact that there are no exceptions, except on extreme compassionate grounds.

ORDER OF RELEASE.

Colonel PENRY WILLIAMS: 29
asked the Secretary of State for War (1) whether Sapper R. N. Crozier, aged twenty-seven, enlisted September, 1914, and attached to the L Signal Bat-
talion, is ineligible for demobilisation under Army Order of the 29th January, 1.919, paragraph 7 of the Schedule; if so, how long will this man be retained; whether every effort will be made to find a substitute at the earliest possible moment; (2) whether Private J. Bowe, 23rd Ordnance Depot, Army Ordnance Corps, British Expeditionary Force, France, aged forty-two, enlisted September, 1914, is ineligible for demobilisation under Army Order of 29th January, 1919, paragraph 12 of the Schedule; if so, how long will this man be retained; and whether every effort will be made to fine a substitute at the earliest possible moment; (3) whether Private W. T. Townsend, No. 132406, Royal Army Medical Corps, staff, No. 10, General Hospital, Rouen, France, who enlisted in 1914, is ineligible for demobilisation under the Army Order of 29th January, 1919, paragraph 11 of the Schedule; if so, how long will this man be retained; and whether every effort will be made to find a substitute at the earliest possible moment?

Mr. CHURCHILL: Except for the possibility that the soldiers mentioned by my hon. and gallant Friend may be temporarily required for the military machinery of demobilisation, they would appear to be otherwise eligible for release. If they are so temporarily required, they are liable to retention until they can be substituted or their services dispensed with, but every effort is being made to replace men who are so retained as early as possible.

MEN OVER FORTY-ONE.

Sir ARTHUR FELL: 32.
asked the Secretary of State for War if his attention has been called to the numbers of letters being received from France daily from men of forty-one, forty-two, and forty-three years of age who have been two or three years in France and who cannot get released, whilst much younger men with shorter service are coming home demobilised daily; if grave dissatisfaction is caused by such treatment; and what is the reason for it?

Mr. CHURCHILL: Men over thirty-seven years of age are being demobilised as the exigencies of the Service permit. A considerable number have already been demobilised, but at the same time it is unavoidable that some men who are younger, or may have had shorter service, should also have been demobilised. In making up dispersal drafts a certain order of
priority is followed, and each draft includes, as far as possible, a proportion of men of all classes as laid down in the order of priority. It would be unfair and also inadvisable from the point of view of industrial requirements to demobilise the whole of the men of one class, to the exclusion of men in other classes.

Sir A. FELL: What are unfortunate Members of Parliament to do with the masses of these letters they receive—I have a number in my pocket now—asking us to appeal to the House of Commons to get men released?

Colonel W. THORNE: We all get them.

Mr. CHURCHILL: We endeavour to release all those men who are eligible for release as quickly as possible in the order of their industrial classification. If they have to wait a month or two, or even a little longer, they may console themselves with the fact that they are coming home as fast as they can possibly be brought. If my hon. Friend (Sir A. Fell) will send samples of his letters, or all his letters, to my hon. Friend (Mr. MacCallum Scott), he will deal with them.

Sir J. D. REES: Is it a fact that the authorities now do not take into account the one-man business or the pivotal man, or any consideration other than that of length of service combined with age?

Mr. CHURCHILL: Length of service, age, and wounds are the only considerations, mitigated by extreme compassionate grounds.

Colonel THORNE: Are we to understand that we are now supposed to send all our letters to the right hon. Gentleman?

Mr. CHURCHILL: I hope my hon. Friend will temper the wind to the shorn lamb.

561ST (HANTS) WORKS COMPANY.

Mr. THOMAS GRIFFITHS: 35.
asked the Secretary of State for War whether there are over fifty men in the 561st (Hants) Works Company Royal Engineers, Victoria Barracks, County Cork, who are eligible for demobilisation but who cannot secure their release although they have work waiting for them; and whether he
will make inquiries into this matter with a view to these men being given the advantage of the demobilisation scheme?

Mr. CHURCHILL: I am not aware of the number of men in the unit referred to who are eligible for demobilisation, but no doubt there are still a number who have not yet been demobilised. Men of this unit are subject to the same regulations regarding demobilisation as men of other units, and those eligible are being demobilised as the exigencies of the Service permit. It may be necessary to retain temporarily for the military machinery of demobilisation some men who are otherwise eligible for demobilisation, but every effort is being made to replace men so retained as early as possible.

DEMOBILISED MAN ARRESTED AS ABSENTEE.

Colonel ASHLEY: 40.
asked the Secretary of State for War whether his attention has been drawn in the case of Private James Cullen, Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, stationed at Galashiels, who, through an error on the part of his commanding officer, was demobilised, and was afterwards arrested as an absentee and brought before the West Riding magistrate at Wakefield; and whether he will see that this man is not penalised for his commanding officer's mistake?

Mr. CHURCHILL: I am not aware of this occurrence, but will make inquiries into the case, and inform my hon. and gallant Friend of the result as early as possible.

RELEASE ON COMPASSIONATE GROUNDS.

Lieutenant-Colonel Sir J. HOPE: 41.
asked the Secretary of State for War whether he has yet been able to provide any system under which consideration can be given to the applications for release on compassionate grounds, and on account of special hardship, by soldiers who are under 37 years old and who have been called up for service since January, 1916?

Mr. CHURCHILL: Claims to release on compassionate grounds have always been considered. A great number of men were released on these grounds before Army Order 55 of 1919 was issued; and it is also provided in this Army Order that officers whose release on extreme compassionate grounds is approved by the Army Council and all warrant officers and N.C.O.'s and men whose release on extreme compassion-
ate grounds has been or may be ordered by the War Office or whose release on extreme compassionate grounds is approved by General Officers Commanding-in-Chief in accordance with instructions issued to them are to be demobilised as soon as the exigencies of the Service permit. This applies irrespective of age or service.

Sir J. HOPE: To whom should applications for release on compassionate grounds be made, and who has the power of deciding whether those grounds of release are substantial enough to warrant the man's release?

Mr. CHURCHILL: The General Officers Commanding-in-Chief have the discretionary power, and applications would reach them, I should presume, if they were sent through the regular channel from battalion to brigade, from division to corps and from corps to Army in the usual way.

Sir J. HOPE: To whom are Members of Parliament to refer people. To the War Office or the General Officer in charge?

Mr. CHURCHILL: A Member of Parliament or a civilian in this country would, naturally, apply to the War Office. A serving soldier who wished for release would, naturally, go to see his commanding officer, who would make himself responsible for the further advancement of the case.

Mr. WATERSON: What is the line of demarcation for deciding the question of compassionate grounds, seeing that in one particular case if the man could be released his wife's life could be saved?

Mr. CHURCHILL: That obviously must be a matter which you can only leave to the human beings who have the responsibility of deciding in these matters and who know how very limited the exercise of this prerogative must be.

Mr. WATERSON: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that 1,400 cases are supposed to be worse than the one I have mentioned; and, if so, what is the chance of this one?

Mr. CHURCHILL: I cannot tell at all, but we must not let what are called compassionate cases become an abuse which would upset the whole working of our machinery.

Mr. G. TERRELL: In view of the great number of applications which Members of this House are receiving in connection with
compassionate cases is the right hon. Gentleman making arrangements so that all these matters shall be dealt with promptly?

Mr. CHURCHILL: There is this machinery which is in existence. Of course, in a certain sense almost every case is a compassionate case. There are very terrible cases and these it is hoped the machinery will meet. If the hon. Member can show mea melancholy case which has not been dealt with I will look into it myself, and give a ruling which may afford a guide to others in deciding similar cases.

Colonel THORNE: Is it a breach of any Regulation for a Member of the House to write direct to the commanding officer of a particular battalion or unit?

Mr. CHURCHILL: I know of nothing which prevents a Member of the House writing a letter to anyone in the world.

CIVILIAN OVERCOATS.

Lieutenant-Colonel Sir F. HALL: 42.
asked the Secretary of State for War whether the Government have yet arrived at any decision as to whether civilian overcoats are to be given to men on demobilisation, in view of the services rendered by the men and the cost of providing overcoats themselves?

Mr. CHURCHILL: No change is contemplated in the conditions under which a civilian greatcoat is issuable to a soldier, as explained in reply to my hon. and gallant Friend on the 17th February. Any discharged soldier may retain his military greatcoat, removing the shoulder-straps and changing the buttons, but the sum of £1 held against the return of the greatcoat is not in that case refunded to him.

Sir F. HALL: Is my right hon. Friend aware that when I asked this question a fortnight ago he said the matter would be further looked into with a view to a little more attention being given to it?

Mr. CHURCHILL: The examination it has received has not led to any change being made in the practice.

Colonel ROYDS: Does that answer apply to the Volunteer Force?

Mr. CHURCHILL: I should think so. I am not sure, but as far as soldiers are concerned £1 is taken from their pay, and when they return the greatcoat they get
their sovereign back. If they like to keep the greatcoat there is nothing more said about it.

Sir F. HALL: Is my right hon. Friend aware that many of these greatcoats are not worth anything like a sovereign? They are practically used up by the time the men come home.

Mr. CHURCHILL: The man has only to take his coat back and he will get a sovereign.

JOINERS.

Lieutenant-Colonel Sir J. HOPE: 44.
asked the Secretary of State for War whether, in view of the urgent demand for joiners for repair and construction of houses, he will consider extending the date of 1st February, 1919, before which the applications for their demobilisation must have been received?

Mr. CHURCHILL: I regret that my hon. and gallant Friend's suggestion cannot be entertained.

C3 MEN.

Mr. JOHN DAVISON: 60.
asked the Financial Secretary to the War Office whether men of category C 3 are still retained in the Army; whether such men would be rendering greater service, and save expense to the Exchequer, if they were at once demobilised; and whether he can see his way to direct the immediate demobilisation of all C 3 men?

Mr. CHURCHILL: The answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative, unless the men are eligible for demobilisation, but I may add that only such as are fully employed in the Army are being retained. I regret I cannot accede to my hon. Friend's proposal contained in the third part of the question, as many C 3 men are employed in administrative services, and their immediate demobilisation would lead to considerable dislocation.

Mr. DAVISON: Can the right hon. Gentleman give an assurance that those men who have a position to return to in civil life will be demobilised?

Mr. CHURCHILL: No, Sir. If they are needed for the purposes of demobilisation they will have to be retained during the period while this great strain is going on. If they are included within the retained
categories they will have to be retained in. those categories even if they are C 3 men, assuming that they are capable of doing the work for which they are employed.

WEEKLY PAYMENTS.

Colonel ASHLEY: 63.
asked the Financial Secretary to the War Office whether he is aware that after the date of leaving the demobilisation centre and during the period of twenty-eight days' furlough many demobilised men have received no money from their regimental paymaster although their accounts are in credit; and whether, in view of the hardship entailed by these men not having the means to purchase food or pay their rent, he will consider issuing the necessary instructions to enable such payments to be made?

Mr. CHURCHILL: All necessary instructions for regular weekly payments were issued before demobilisation began. If there is any failure in individual cases it is owing to some failure to carry out the instructions, and I shall be glad if my hon. and gallant Friend will give me particulars of any cases that come to his notice.

DISCHARGED MEN (EMPLOYMENT).

Mr. F. ROBERTS: 79.
asked the Pensions Minister whether, having regard to the large number of discharged men recommended for employment in light work only, and the lack of such employment, any consideration has been given to the question of State employment for such men in special factories under proper supervision and conditions?

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of LABOUR (Mr. Wardle): My right hon. Friend the Minister of Pensions has asked me to reply to this question, as the responsibility in regard to the employment of disabled men at present vested in the Ministry of Pensions is about to be transfered to the Ministry of Labour. I am hopeful that, as a result of an appeal which is about to be made to all employers in the country, and of the administrative action which will be taken following on that appeal, suitable employment will shortly be secured for a large proportion of the discharged men who are fit for light work only. There must, however, remain a certain proportion for whom employment cannot be found in the ordinary way, and I have just arranged for an analysis to be made of the nature of the disabilities
of the men registered for employment in certain districts which have been suggested by the Labour Resettlement Committee. As soon as the result of this analysis is available, careful consideration will be given to any measures necessary to secure that suitable employment is made available for the men referred to.

Oral Answers to Questions — WAR OFFICE (LANDS BRANCH DEPARTMENT).

Major BARNES: 10 and 99.
asked the Secretary of State for War (1) the date on which the Lands Branch Department of the War Office was incorporated in the Lands Directorate of the Ministry of Munitions; and what was the total amount annually payable to the staff of the Lands Branch Department on the date of the outbreak of war and on the date of its incorporation in the Lands Directorate; the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Munitions (2) what was the date of the establishment of the Lands Directorate; and what has been the total amount paid in salaries to the staff of the Lands Directorate and fees, if any, to persons not on the staff but employed from time to time by the Lands Directorate from the date of its establishment to the date of the incorporation with it of the Lands Branch of the War Office and from the latter date to 31st December, 1918?

Mr. CHURCHILL: As the reply to these two questions involves a somewhat lengthy statement, I will, with my hon. and gallant Friend's permission, have it circulated in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

The following is the reply referred to:

The Lands Directorate of the Ministry of Munitions never had a seperate existence.

On the outbreak of the War the Lands Branch of the War Office (besides its normal peace-time duties in connection with the administration of War Department lands both at home and in the Colonies) dealt with the taking over of land or buildings for War Department purposes and the assessment of compensation therefor. On the constitution of the Ministry of Munitions it performed similar duties for that Department.

In November, 1916, it was arranged that the work connected with the acquisition and administration of real property in
lands and buildings, and questions cognate thereto for the Ministry of Munitions, should be carried out by the War Office Lands Branch, which then became the Directorate of Lands for the War Office and Ministry of Munitions, but was still responsible to the Under-Secretary of State for War, though it took instructions from the Ministry of Munitions in Ministry matters.

In September, 1917, the Directorate took over similar duties for the Admiralty in connection with the National Shipyards. Upon the Air Ministry being constituted, the Lands Directorate took over the same responsibilities for the Air Ministry as those which they carried out on behalf of the War Office.

At the outbreak of the War the approximate annual salaries of the Headquarters Staff of the Lands Branch, administrative, professional and clerical, amounted to £5,600.

On the formal taking over of similar duties for the Ministry of Munitions in November, 1916, the approximate annual salaries amounted to £8,900.

On the 31st December, 1918, when it had become Lands Directorate for the War Office, Ministry of Munitions, Air Ministry, and Ministry of Shipping, the annual salaries amounted approximately to £32,000. About £6,000 was paid in fees to outside experts between March, 1917, and 31st December, 1918.

The above figures are inclusive for the work carried out by the Lands Directorate for all the various Government Departments for whom they are acting, with the exception that they do not include the regimental pay and allowances of certain officers (unfit for general service) who are temporarily attached to the Directorate.

Oral Answers to Questions — CENTRAL REGIMENTAL INSTITUTE FUNDS.

Lieutenant-Colonel WEIGALL: 13.
asked the Secretary of State for War what is the total amount now standing to the credit of the Central Regimental Institute funds; and how is this to be disposed of?

Mr. CHURCHILL: The present amount of the Central Regimental Institutes Fund is approximately £640,000, of which a proportionate amount is for the Air
Force. The Army Council have a general discretion to use this and analogous funds for the benefit of the troops from whom they have been derived. The question of dealing with such funds on an equitable basis in the interests of air concerned is at present receiving the attention of the Council.

Lieutenant-Colonel WEIGALL: Will there be any civilian representative on whatever body has the ultimate disposal of these funds?

Mr. CHURCHILL: I am giving this matter attention now. It is a very important matter, affecting not only this fund but very much larger funds which have been amassed by the canteen system, and I think it would be much better that I should defer the question until I can make a general statement.

Colonel ASHLEY: Ought not the decision regarding the allocation of money derived exclusively from serving soldiers to rest with Service and ex-Service men, seeing that it has nothing at all to do with civilians?

Mr. HOGGE: Is my right hon. Friend aware that there is an Army Order in existence, published some considerable time ago, which places all the money of the Central Regimental Institute Funds, Command Funds, and other funds at the disposal of the Army Council and in the hands of an Army trustee for purposes other than those designated, and is this large amount of money, of which half-a-million has been announced already in the House of Commons, to be dealt with in this way without the House of Commons having anything to say?

Colonel Sir R. WILLIAMS: Was not this question referred last year to the Public Accounts Committee?

Mr. CHURCHILL: I am notinformed on the actual questions which were dealt with by the Public Accounts Committee last year in this connection, but so far as the general question of the disposal of this and similar funds is concerned it seems to me that the matter has got to be treated from one point of view and on general principles applicable to all the funds. I am doing my best to have the matter very carefully examined. I propose that there should be a conference between the representatives of the War Office and of two of the principal associa-
tions involved in regard to the care of soldiers and soldiers' funds after the War, and out of these discussions I hope to be able to put before the House a policy which will be of a comprehensive character.

Mr. HOGGE: Will the right Hon. Gentleman not answer my question whether it is or is not the fact that there is an Army Order in existence, published by his authority under which all this money is handed over to Army Trustees for a purpose which has never been discussed in this House or by the men most concerned?

Lieutenant-Colonel WEIGALL: Will the right hon. Gentleman allow at least one or two Members of the House to be added to the personnel of the suggested conference?

Mr. CHURCHILL: I think these matters ought to be discussed, and I shall welcome the discussion of them if it takes place in the manner which my hon. Friend suggests. With regard to the specific question asked by the hon. Member (Mr. Hogge), he knows the answer. He says there is an Army Order dealing with this subject, and I do not understand why he puts the supplementary question.

Mr. HOGGE: For this reason—

Mr. SPEAKER: Order, order! The hon. Member is not now asking a question.

Oral Answers to Questions — ARMY RATIONS (SAVINGS AND BY-PRODUCTS).

Lieutenant - Colonel WEIGALL: 14.
asked the Secretary for War whether it is proposed to continue as a permanent administrative branch of the Army the Quartermaster - General service, established in the Home Army in 1914, and in France in November, 1916; what is the total amount of saving in rations effected with the British Expeditionary Force in France up to 1st November, 1918, since establishment; what amount of income has accrued from the disposal of ration by-products; and how many officers are now employed?

Mr. CHURCHILL: The question whether this branch of the Quartermaster-General's services shall be continued as a permanent administrative branch of the Army is under consideration.
The figures which my hon. and gallant Friend asks for are as follow:

B.E.F.France.



£


Total Amount of Savings in Rations
1,204,666


Value of By-products Sold
481,029


Home Army.


Total Amount of Savings in Rations
1,193,403


Value of By-products Sold
1,384,859

The number of officers now employed can only be given approximately, owing to continual
changes taking place. The figures are:

B.E.F. France.


Inspectors
5


Instructors in Catering
14


Home Army.


Inspectors
31


Instructors in Catering
22

Sir F. HALL: Have these accounts been properly certified, or are they only approximate at the present time?

Mr. CHURCHILL: I do not know what steps were taken to verify the figures. I assume great care was used.

Lieutenant-Colonel WEIGALL: Are they not duly certified by every commander at home?

Oral Answers to Questions — NAVAL AND MILITARY PENSIONS AND GRANTS.

SPECIAL SECTION MEN (SPECIAL GRATUITY).

Mr. FORESTIER-WALKER: 15.
asked the Secretary for War if he is aware that the Postmaster-General has recently reviewed the cases of men who enlisted under the Post Office circular of the 29th September, 1914, and decided to cease deductions made on the increases of separation allowances and to refund the same; and whether he will also review the decision not to pay the demobilisation gratuity?

Mr. CHURCHILL: I would refer my hon. Friend to the reply given on the 26th February by my right hon. Friend the Postmaster-General, in answer to questions by the hon. Members for Wednesbury and Wolverhampton East, to the effect that the question of the Service gratuity is under consideration. It is not
proposed, to modify the decision under which these men were specifically excluded from the war gratuity.

Mr. FORESTIER - WALKER: Arising out of that answer, may I ask if the right hon. Gentleman is aware that the intention of the Post Office circular of September, 1914, was to place re-enlisting Post Office men on the same footing, as regards military pay and allowances, as the ordinary soldier?

Mr. CHURCHILL: I understand these men get not only their military pay but also their full civil pay. I should have thought in that case their position compares very favourably with that of the ordinary soldier, and that it is not necessary to emphasise it.

TEMPORARY INSPECTORS OF WORKS (OFFICERS' CHILDREN).

Brigadier-General COCKERILL: 17.
asked the Secretary for War whether he will consider the amendment of Army Order No. 44, of the 26th January, 1919, so as to grant to temporary inspectors of works the special allowance in respect of officers' children which is payable to other officers in receipt of higher rates of pay?

Mr. CHURCHILL: Officers whose emoluments are fixed on a civil basis are not eligible for children's allowance. They have received the war bonuses granted to civilians on similar rates of pay. It is not proposed to make any alteration in this arrangement.

KING'S FUND.

Mr. HOGGE: 75.
asked the Pensions Minister whether he can give the present total of the King's Fund and say how much was collected in Gratitude Week?

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of PENSIONS (Sir James Craig): The present total of the King's Fund is £891,000. The actual amount received during Gratitude Week (12th to 18th January) was £13,619, but much of the money collected during the week appears in the receipts of the following weeks. The total amount received from the beginning of Gratitude Week to date is £180,000.

DISCHARGED SOLDIERS.

Mr. HOGGE: 76.
asked the Pensions Minister whether he is aware that discharged soldiers who are receiving treat-
ment in military hospitals are required to wear military uniform and to conform to military discipline; whether such men are refused the usual half-fare railway warrants issuable by the military authorities to men desiring to visit their families; and whether he will consider the question of extending this privilege to pensioner inmates of military hospitals?

Sir J. CRAIG: Pensioners are, as a rule, put into military hospital clothing (blue) and, in the interests of discipline, they have to conform to the same rules as other patients in military hospitals. The question of granting further travelling facilities to disabled men under treatment in hospitals or other institutions is now under consideration.

Sir K. WOOD: 77.
asked the Pensions Minister whether he has now arranged to increase the grant in cases of discharged soldiers and sailors dying from disability due to service so as to render unnecessary application to the Poor Law authorities in respect of the expenses of their funerals?

Sir J. CRAIG: The question of increasing the grant is still under consideration.

Sir K. WOOD: Pending my hon. Friend's decision are applications to be made to the Poor Law authorities for grants in respect of the burial of discharged soldiers and sailors?

Sir J. CRAIG: The question is receiving the careful personal attention of the Minister himself.

Sir K. WOOD: When will he come to a decision?

Sir J. CRAIG: I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will be here on Thursday to answer any questions of the hon. Member.

TRAINING ALLOWANCES.

Mr. F. ROBERTS: 78.
asked if there is any likelihood of the allowances to men undergoing training being increased?

Sir J. CRAIG: The training allowances to which the bonus of 20 per cent. is added are considered to be sufficient, and it is not in contemplation to increase them.

Mr. ROBERTS: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that some pensions committees are paying an extra allowance?

Sir J. CRAIG: I am afraid that it is not authorised.

DISABILITY PENSIONS.

Captain LOSEBY: 80.
asked the Pensions Minister if he is able to report any speeding-up in regard to the assessment of disability pensions, appeal in regard to awards, and the granting of alternative pensions?

Sir J. CRAIG: My hon. and gallant Friend will recognise that demobilisation is throwing a very great strain on practically all branches of the Department. Every effort is being made to cope with the work and, by reorganisation and increase of staff, to ensure greater expedition, but some considerable time must necessarily elapse before any substantial improvement can be expected.

ALTERNATIVE PENSIONS.

Captain LOSEBY: 81.
asked the Pensions Minister whether, seeing that only 2 per cent. of disabled soldiers in receipt of disablement pensions are in receipt of alternative pensions, he will take steps to circularise all soldiers in receipt of pensions pointing out in simple language the advantages of the alternative pension scheme?

Sir J. CRAIG: The alternative pension scheme is explained in simple language in the Disabled Soldiers' Hand Book, which is issued to every soldier on discharge. The scheme has also been publicly explained from time to time by means of Press announcements. The small number of alternative pension applications received from disabled men in 1918 is in some measure explained by the fact that large numbers of partially disabled men succeeded in obtaining employment at wages which, in conjunction with their disablement pensions, made them ineligible for alternative pension benefit.

Captain LOSEBY: 82.
asked the Pensions Minister if soldiers undergoing treatment are debarred from applying for alternative pensions?

Sir J. CRAIG: A soldier drawing disablement pension can at any time apply for an alternative pension. If he has to go under treatment and is thus unable to work, he is given, in lieu of his pension, allowances for himself and his family at the full disability rate, and if the allowances so granted are less than his pre-war earnings he can apply for an alternative allowance calculated on the same basis as the alternative pension of a man totally disabled.

Oral Answers to Questions — SECOND-LIEUTENANTS (PROMOTION).

Colonel YATE: 19.
asked the Secretary for War whether the fact that an officer of the rank of second-lieutenant being wounded before full completion of eighteen months' service as second-lieutenant puts a stop to his promotion to the rank of lieutenant; and, if not, will such promotions now be gazetted?

Mr. CHURCHILL: The fact of a second-lieutenant being wounded does not prevent his promotion, provided he completes eighteen months' service, fulfils the necessary conditions, and is recommended for promotion.

Colonel YATE: Will this go on indefinitely now?

Mr. CHURCHILL: If a second-lieutenant, who has joined fifteen months is wounded and is still in hospital, remaining in the service eighteen months, he will get his step as lieutenant, or at any rate be recommended for it.

Oral Answers to Questions — MOTOR REPAIR DEPOT, CIPPENHAM.

Sir CHARLES HENRY: 24.
asked the Secretary of Slate for War whether the£1,750,000, the estimated cost of the works at Cippenham, include the land; and what price has been or will be paid for the 600 acres that have been requisitioned?

Mr. CHURCHILL: The estimate of £1,750,000 did not include the land. The land has not been purchased, and, for obvious reasons, the estimated cost cannot be disclosed at the present stage.

Mr. G. LAMBERT: Can the right hon. Gentleman say the result of the inquiry into this subject which he promised last week?

Mr. CHURCHILL: I cannot immediately say what the result is. I have had some consultations upon the subject, and Sir James Stevenson, the Surveyor-General of Supply at the War Office, who was formerly, as the right hon. Gentleman knows, at the Ministry of Munitions, is looking into the whole of this subject with an absolutely open mind and is advising me as to the course I should pursue from a business point of view and in the interests of the country.

. Sir C. HENRY: 25
asked the Secretary of State for War whether, when the Ministry of Supply is organised, it is the intention to transfer the Cippenham scheme to that Ministry or whether it is the intention of the War Office directly to undertake the repairs of motor transport vehicles?

Mr. CHURCHILL: I have the whole question of Cippenham under consideration. I have asked Sir James Stevenson, the new Surveyor-General of Supply at the War Office, to look into the whole matter and make me a special Report.

Sir C. HENRY: My right hon. Friend has not answered the question whether it is his intention to transfer this to the Ministry of Supplies?

Mr. CHURCHILL: It was my first idea to transfer it to the Ministry of Supplies, but I received from the Ministry of Supplies strong arguments which led me to believe that they wished me to retain the responsibility for dealing with the matter.

Oral Answers to Questions — TERRITORIAL OFFICERS (DECORATIONS).

Lieutenant-Colonel POWNALL: 26.
asked the Secretary of State for War if he will extend the privilege of counting war service as double time for the purpose of qualifying for the Territorial officers' decoration and long-service medal to those officers and men who rejoined at the beginning of the War?

Mr. CHURCHILL: I regret that I cannot see my way to adopt my hon. and gallant Friend's suggestion. This matter was fully considered at the time when the changes in the conditions were made, and it was decided that the privilege should be limited to those officers and men who were actually in the Territorial Force at the outbreak of the War.

Lieutenant-Colonel POWNALL: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that officers who will not on this ruling get their decorations have also, in rejoining, lost much of their pre-war seniority?

Mr. CHURCHILL: No, Sir. I do not think it is a serious injustice. If there is a very hard case which my hon. and gallant Friend knows, I shall be glad if he will write me on the subject if he has a specific case, and I will look into it.

Oral Answers to Questions — ACCELERATED PROMOTION (OFFICERS).

Lieutenant-Colonel ROYDS: 28.
asked the Secretary of State for War if it is intended, with the object of advancing younger officers of proved merit and experience, to give accelerated promotion to all officers. Regular and otherwise, who have successfully commanded battalions overseas?

Mr. CHURCHILL: Accelerated promotion can only be given as vacancies occur, but the claims of the officers referred to will be given every consideration. Large numbers of these officers have received brevet promotion.

Lieutenant-Colonel GUINNESS: To facilitate this process, will the right hon. Gentleman consider shortening the period of qualifying service for a pension so as to enable less suitable officers to retire at an earlier date?

Mr. CHURCHILL: Undoubtedly certain extra facilities—emergency facilities—should be offered to officers of senior rank to retire from the Army in order to clear the way for the necessary promotions that should follow from the War. I am giving the matter my attention.

Lieutenant-Colonel GUINNESS: Will the right hon. Gentleman deal with pensions in a generous spirit?

Oral Answers to Questions — ARMY STOKES DEPOT, DIDCOT.

Captain REGINALD TERRELL: 33.
asked the Secretary of State for War what are the Government intentions with regard to the stores depot at Didcot; and whether, if the building operations are to continue, he will consider the desirability of the work being taken out of the hands of contractors and given to the Royal Engineers?

Mr. CHURCHILL: The Didcot depot is one of the main Ordnance depots in the United Kingdom, and it is proposed to retain it as such. As regards the second part of the question, all building operations at this depot, and all maintenance services have been in the hands of the Royal Engineers since September, 1918. Contractors employed on any new services are and will continue to be under direct local Royal Engineer supervision.

Oral Answers to Questions — WAR GRATUITY (TERRITORIAL OFFICERS).

Captain FALCON: 34.
asked the Secretary of State for War if he is aware that an order has been made to the effect that officers transferred to permanent commissions in the Regular Army from the Territorial Force are not eligible for the war gratuity for their services in the latter force, under Article 497 of the pay warrant; that this order is of late date and has been made retrospective, and has thus been enforced on officers now holding permanent commissions in the Regular Army, and who were granted them previous to this order being in force; will the many young officers of the Territorial Force, whose names are being registered for permanent commissions in the Regular Army, some of them with four years' active service, be treated on the same lines, and be ineligible for the gratuity for their past services in the Territorial Force; and can he explain the reasons for this treatment of officers who served in the Territorial Force from embodiment, and were, in most cases, granted their commissions in the Regular Army for service in the field?

Mr. CHURCHILL: My hon. and gallant Friend is under a misapprehension. Army Order 406, of 1915, stated clearly that the gratuity is not issuable to temporary officers transferred to permanent Commissions in the Regular Army.

Oral Answers to Questions — SPECIAL LEAVE (FAMILY ILLNESS).

Mr. TREVELYAN THOMSON: 36.
asked the Secretary of State for War whether the following restrictions regarding special leave were laid down by the Director of Roads, General Headquarters, British Expeditionary Force, France, under dates 21/10/18 and 29/10/18: Cases of illness cannot be considered unless confirmed as dangerous, except in the case of wives, when cases of serious illness may be considered; cases of illness of relatives (other than wives), even though confirmed as dangerous, can only receive favourable consideration if there are further extenuating circumstances which necessitate the applicant's presence, and full particulars of such, where they exist, must accompany the application. Similarly an even stronger case of necessity must be made out for special leave on
account of the death of parent or child; whether these orders are still in force; and can more consideration be shown in future in all cases of bonâ fide family illness?

Mr. CHURCHILL: I have no information as to this, but am having inquiry made and I will write to my hon. Friend as soon as I am in a position to do so.

Sir E. CARSON: Will you publish the answer?

Mr. CHURCHILL: Certainly.

Oral Answers to Questions — ARMIES OF OCCUPATION.

MESSING IN VICARAGES.

Lieutenant-Colonel GUINNESS: 39.
asked the Secretary of State for War whether any order has been issued to the whole or any part of the Army of Occupation to forbid or to limit the billeting of British troops on the Catholic clergy in Germany; whether he is aware that such order deprives British troops of what is generally the best accommodation in the villages; and whether, in view of the willingness with which the French Catholic clergy during the War received British troops in their houses, he will say why this special advantage should have been given to the Catholic clergy in enemy territory?

Mr. CHURCHILL: On representation made by the Archbishop of Cologne to Marshal Foch, 2nd Army issued instructions that messes should not be accommodated in vicarages if other accommodation was available. The order does not preclude the use of vicarages for billeting troops, and some vicarages are being used for these purposes. No discrimination between different creeds was made.

Lieutenant-Colonel GUINNESS: Is it not a fact that the vicarage is by far the best messing accommodation in the village?

Mr. CHURCHILL: I am quite content to base myself on the arrangements which have been entered into by Marshal Foch for the general conduct of the Allied Army on the Rhine Front, and the British Army will conform to what is thought to be the regular view.

INTERPRETERS.

Mr. T. WILSON: 62.
asked the Financial Secretary to the War Office whether
British soldiers who are acting as interpreters with the Army of Occupation are receiving any extra pay for their services; and, if so, will he say how much?

Mr. CHURCHILL: Yes, Sir; British soldiers employed 'as interpreters receive additional pay at 1s. a day.

Mr. WILSON: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that French and Belgium soldiers who act as interpreters in the British Army are paid 10s. per day, and could he not increase the amount paid to the British soldiers?

Oral Answers to Questions — NEWSPAPERS (NO RETURNS ORDER).

Brigadier-General SURTEES: 48.
asked the Prime Minister whether he will now consider the possibility of rescinding the No Returns Order, which it is complained unjustly throws the loss on unsold papers upon the newsagent instead of, as formerly, upon the publishers?

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of TRADE (Mr. Bridgeman): The Prime Minister has asked me to answer this question. I am afraid I cannot add anything to the reply which I gave yesterday to the hon. and gallant Member for Wandsworth Central.

Oral Answers to Questions — HOUSING.

STATEMENT BY MR. BONAR LAW.

Major BARNES: 46.
asked the Prime Minister whether, in view of the fact that 300 tenants of houses over £35 in rental are under notice to quit in Newcastle-on-Tyne, he will take immediate steps to prevent ejectment orders being issued?

Mr. ROWLANDS: 47.
asked the Prime Minister what action the Government propose to take to meet the case of the tenants who have received notice to quit or the alternative to buy the houses they occupy?

Mr. JOYNSON-HICKS: 53.
asked the Prime Minister whether he is aware that, since the Armistice, many landlords are giving notice to their lessees to repaint and decorate houses in accordance with the terms of the leases; whether he is aware that this would, at the present moment, cost more than twice the usual
price; and whether, seeing that the men would be better employed in more essential work, he can see his way to make an Order postponing this work except in cases of sanitary or other urgent necessity?

Sir RICHARD COOPER: 54.
asked the Prime Minister whether, in view of the fact that the Increase of Rent Act, 1915, does not protect tenants against the danger of eviction at the approaching quarter-day, he will afford them temporary protection by prohibiting the sale of any house property at a price exceeding twenty-five times its rateable value in 1914, and by prohibiting any rent being charged for house property in excess of 33⅓ per cent. above its rateable value in 1917?

Mr. BONAR LAW (Leader of the House): I have no information on the subject of the question of my hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham, but am having it inquired into. The Government have decided to introduce a Bill to prolong the duration of the Rent Restriction Act until the expiration of one year from the termination of the present War, but after the time when the present Act would have expired, to allow rent to be increased by not more than 10 per cent. and the rate of mortgage interest to be increased by not more than one half per cent. with a limit of 5 per cent. The Government have also decided to extend the operation of the Act to houses whose rateable value at the commencement of the War did not exceed £55, with corresponding values in the provinces and Scotland. With respect to houses of this class and mortgages thereon no increase made after to-day will be allowed which will make the rent more than 10 per cent., or the rate of mortgage interest more than one half per cent., above that charged at the beginning of the War.

Mr. ROWLANDS: When will the Bill be introduced?

Mr. BONAR LAW: I hope it will be introduced this week.

Sir E. CARSON: Will it apply to the United Kingdom?

Mr. BONAR LAW: I think so; but I must not be committed to that statement.

Mr. KENNEDY JONES: Will it be retrospective?

Mr. BONAR LAW: No.

Mr. KENNEDY JONES: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there are a great many tenants awaiting eviction in March?

Mr. BONAR LAW: The answer I gave shows that they will not be able to ask a higher rent than that which is now being charged.

Sir R. COOPER: Does not the principle equally apply to all houses above a rateable value of £55?

Mr. BONAR LAW: No, I do not think so, but it must be obvious that we cannot argue it by way of question and answer. I am sure the House will understand that it is not desired to take the building of all houses out of private enterprise, of which there is a danger.

Lieutenant-Colonel WEIGALL: Will those conditions also apply to small holdings?

Colonel WEDGWOOD: Is it £55 gross or net?

Mr. BONAR LAW: Rateable value.

INCREASE OF RENTS.

Mr. NEIL M'LEAN (by private Notice): asked the Secretary for Scotland whether his attention has been drawn to the scheme which the firm of Messrs. J. A. Taggart are trying to impose upon approximately 100 of their tenants in Partick; whether he is aware that this scheme means a large increase in the annual payments from those tenants; that this firm have demanded an acceptance of their proposals by 8th March, and have intimated that tenants who decline will have to vacate their houses at Whitsun term; and, in view of the shortage of houses, and the state of industrial unrest at present existing in Glasgow, will he state what steps the Government propose taking to safeguard the rights of the tenants?

The SECRETARY for SCOTLAND (Mr. Munro): The reply to the first three parts of the question is in the affirmative. In regard to the last part of the question, I would refer the hon. Member to the statement on this subject made by the Leader of the House to-day.

Mr. M'LEAN: Will the statement to be made by the right hon. Gentleman include something which will mean that those people will not have to pay 50 per cent. increase in rent such as the scheme propounded contemplates?

Mr. MUNRO: I apprehend that those tenants will be protected against action referred to by the policy of the Government as explained by the Leader of the House. That will certainly be so if the rents, as I understand is the case, do not exceed £32.

Oral Answers to Questions — MINISTERS' SALARIES.

Sir C. HENRY: 49.
asked the Prime Minister whether, in view of the fact that the salaries of the Ministers of the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Ways and Communications are to be fixed at £5,000 per annum, and considering that the duties of the President of the Board of Agriculture, the President of the Board of Education, the Postmaster-General, the Secretary for Scotland, and the Minister of Pensions are as responsible and onerous as those of the new Ministers are likely to be, he will arrange that their salaries be increased to £5,000 per annum?

Mr. BONAR LAW: I would refer the hon. Member to the reply which I gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Scottish Universities on Thursday last.

Sir C. HENRY: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that as Minister's salaries are no longer pooled, this is a matter which should be dealt with?

Mr. BONAR LAW: Yes.

Mr. STEWART: Will the right hon. Gentleman remember that the Minister of Labour is a very hard-worked Minister?

Mr. BONAR LAW: The answer to which I referred said that we were going to deal with the whole question of Ministerial salaries.

Oral Answers to Questions — FOOD SUPPLIES.

WHEAT PRICES.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: 52.
asked the Prime Minister whether his attention has been called to the fact that, owing to Government action, the country is paying £2 to £3 per quarter more for wheat than it
need; and whether this is due to lack of ships or to the desire to keep up agricultural prices?

The MINISTER of FOOD (Mr. Roberts): I have been asked to reply, and would inform the hon. and gallant Member that the answer to his question was printed in yesterday's OFFICIAL REPORT.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: Why, when I gave notice to postpone it to to-day, was it printed yesterday?

Oral Answers to Questions — RUSSIAN EMBASSY.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: 56.
asked the Lord Privy Seal if he will state on what Vote the sums appear which have been paid to the Embassy of the old Russian Government in this country?

The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER (Mr. Chamberlain): These sums have been charged to the Vote of Credit.

Oral Answers to Questions — INCOME TAX.

OFFICERS' CHILDREN (ALLOWANCE).

Sir F. HALL: 57.
asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he will take steps in the Finance Bill to see that the allowance to children of officers shall be made without deduction of Income Tax; and whether, in the event of his agreeing to such legislation, it will be made retrospective as and from the date that such allowances were first given?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: These additional emoluments are assessable to Income Tax equally with the rest of an officer's emoluments, but I would remind my hon. and gallant Friend that there is a statutory Income Tax deduction of £25 for each child under sixteen where the total income does not exceed £800, and for each child in excess of two where the total income, although exceeding £800, does not exceed £1,000. In these circumstances, I am unable to accept my hon. and gallant Friend's proposal.

Oral Answers to Questions — ENEMY AIR RAIDS.

Sir F. HALL: 59.
asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he can give the reason why the cost of damage done by enemy air raids to public works and sewers, etc.,
is not transferred from the local authorities to the Exchequer, considering that those parts of the country which have been called upon to suffer the terrors of the raids are also to be made to bear the cost of same?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: I am afraid that I cannot add anything to previous replies to questions on this subject.

Sir F. HALL: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the reply was given in his absence that it was not right to agree to this, and under the circumstances can he inform the House under what conditions it is not right that these people should get the benefit of the general taxation?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: This question was considered in the last Parliament, and in the opinion of my predecessor, as well as of myself, it is not a burden that we ought to assume for the general taxpayers.

Oral Answers to Questions — MOTOR CYCLES (WAR OFFICE SURPLUS).

Brigadier-General CROFT: 61.
asked the Financial Secretary to the War Office whether all second-hand motor cycles surplus to the requirements of the War Office will be offered for sale; whether all ranks will be permitted to bid for such motor cycles; and whether the time and place of sale will be widely advertised?

The DEPUTY-MINISTER of MUNITIONS (Mr. Kellaway): All motor cycles notified to the Disposal Board as being surplus to the requirements of the War Office will, after the requirements of other Government Departments have been satisfied, be sold after full publicity and advertisement. Members of His Majesty's Forces, of all ranks, will be permitted to bid for such motor cycles.

Oral Answers to Questions — WAR GRATUITY (NAVY AND ARMY).

Colonel ASHLEY: 64.
asked the Financial Secretary to the War Office whether, in view of the fact that no deduction is made from the monthly increments of the special war gratuity in the case of a sailor
who has drawn both pay and pension, he will extend a like concession to soldiers who have drawn both pay and pension during the War?

Mr. CHURCHILL: The decision to give a smaller increment in these cases applied to Navy and Army alike, and the revised decision to give the full increment also applies to both.

Oral Answers to Questions — Mr. DE VALERA (ESCAPE).

Major O'NEILL: 65.
asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he can give any information as to the circumstances in which the hon. Member for East Clare and other Sinn Fein leaders escaped recently from Lincoln Prison; whether an inquiry has been or will be held to investigate the matter; and whether he is aware that the hon. Member for East Clare has issued a statement or manifesto to his supporters since his escape?

Mr. SHORTT: A full inquiry was held immediately after the escape, which showed that egress from the prison was obtained by a forged key, in the preparation of which the internees had been assisted by friends outside the prison. This was facilitated by the fact that the internees are allowed to associate much more freely than ordinary prisoners, and are not subject to such close supervision. As regards the last part of the question, I believe that a statement was issued, but I am not aware of its exact nature.

Major O'NEILL: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether the inquiry disclosed the method by which the original key was obtained?

Mr. SHORTT: The inquiry did disclose the means.

Major O'NEILL: Is there any truth in the statements which have been made to the effect that this escape was facilitated by women enveigling the sentries from their posts?

Mr. SHORTT: No. None of the sentries have any knowledge of any of the ladies.

Oral Answers to Questions — MORAL IMBECILES.

Sir KINGSLEY WOOD: 67.
asked the Home Secretary whether his attention has been called to the case recently heard at
the Kent Assizes when a prisoner was found guilty, but insane at the time, of the murder of a boy aged six years at Maidstone; whether in 1914 such prisoner was certified under the Mental Deficiency Act as a moral imbecile, but that he could not be sent to a home as it was impossible to find one for him; and whether he will state if there is now sufficient accommodation for such cases?

Mr. SHORTT: My attention has been called to this case. The man was certified under the Mental Deficiency Act in 1914 as a moral imbecile, but he could not be sent to a home at that time as no suitable accommodation existed. At the outbreak of war the building just completed for a State institution at Moss Side was lent to the War Office as a hospital for men suffering from mental disorders. I hope that this building will be returned by the War Office to the Board of Control in the course of a few months. Until this is done, the accommodation for imbeciles of criminal tendencies will be insufficient. In the meantime, some temporary accommodation will be provided by the Board in another institution as soon as staff is available.

Sir E. CARSON: How many of those moral imbeciles with criminal tendencies are at large?

Mr. SHORTT: I must ask for notice of that question.

Oral Answers to Questions — NATURALISATION PAPERS (BIRTH CERTIFICATES).

Major KELLEY: 69.
asked the Home Secretary if he is aware that large numbers of German and alien enemy subjects are naturalising themselves in neutral countries, especially Switzerland; and will he give the necessary instructions that, along with the presentations of naturalisation papers, place and date of birth certificates are also handed in?

Mr. SHORTT: In reply to the first part of the question, I have seen statements to this effect, but I have no official information to confirm them. As regards the second part, the inquiries made of incoming passengers at the ports are, and will be, directed towards ascertaining the facts mentioned by the hon. and gallant Member.

Colonel ASHLEY: Before the naturalisation papers are issued, will the birth certificates be carefully examined?

Mr. SHORTT: Yes, Sir.

Oral Answers to Questions — TAXI-CABS (DRIVERS' OBLIGATIONS).

Sir PARK GOFF: 70.
asked the Home Secretary if he can state whether a taxi-cab driver plying the streets for hire with his flag up is entitled to demand from a member of the public the destination before accepting the hiring; whether, on arrival at the destination, he is entitled to demand his discharge; and whether, for the public information, he can see his way to publish a full statement of a licensed driver's obligations towards the public and the remedies to be taken by the public for a breach thereof?

Mr. SHORTT: As the driver cannot be compelled to drive for more than six miles, he is entitled to inquire the destination; but if the destination being within that limit, he attempts to bargain, the passenger has his legal remedy. On arrival at the destination, if the contract is fulfilled, the driver can claim his discharge. A full statement is contained in the "Abstract of Laws Relating to Proprietors, Drivers, and Conductors of Public Carriages," which is on sale to the public, but the subject is so complicated that it would be difficult to compress it within smaller limits. If any member of the public who is aggrieved communicates with the Commissioner's office, every assistance is given him to assert his rights.

Sir P. GOFF: May I respectfully ask the right hon. Gentleman if he will see his way to give instructions to the Chief Commissioner of Police to see that the terms of the licences granted to drivers are in future carried out?

Mr. SHORTT: They are carried out now.

HON. MEMBERS: No, no!

Oral Answers to Questions — POLICE.

COMMITTEE OF INQUIRY.

Mr. WHITE: 71.
asked whether in the deliberations of the Committee of Inquiry into Police Pay, Pensions, and Conditions
of Service, men of all ranks will be allowed to give evidence personally, and not through a superior officer?

Mr. SHORTT: Representatives of all ranks will be allowed to give evidence personally.

CLUBS (MEMBERSHIP).

Mr. C. WHITE: 72.
asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he will consider the desirability of amending the existing Regulations so as to allow members of all grades of the police force to become members of registered social or political clubs in the same manner that their superior officers are; and whether any Regulation exists which prevents an inspector, sergeant, or constable entering a hotel or public-house when off duty for the purpose of obtaining refreshment in the same manner that an ordinary citizen does?

Mr. SHORTT: The Regulations on both these subjects are made by the local police authorities, and they vary a good deal in different forces. I think it is desirable that the police, who are servants of the public, should not be closely identified with any political association, and equally desirable that in view of their duties they should be guarded in their use of public-houses. I am not prepared to advise relaxation of the existing practice under either head.

Oral Answers to Questions — FACTORIES (MEDICAL INSPECTION).

Sir P. MAGNUS: had given notice of the following question:

74. To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he can say how many members of his staff are engaged in the medical inspection or treatment of persons employed in factories or workshops, or otherwise engaged in matters relating to such duties?

Sir P. MAGNUS: I have received a written answer to this question, but I would ask the right hon. Gentleman to say whether he will consider the advisability of transferring from the Home Office the duties and powers referred to in the question to the new Ministry of Health?

Mr. SHORTT: Yes.

Oral Answers to Questions — MERCANTILE MARINE.

Sir K. WOOD: 84.
asked the Pensions Minister whether members of the Mercantile Marine employed during the War on duties of a naval character or interned in enemy countries are entitled on discharge or repatriation, if suffering from tuberculosis as a result of such services, to treatment; and if he will state the number of such men who have applied for treatment?

Sir J. CRAIG: Of the members of the Mercantile Marine only those who signed on for the period of the War, and were under naval discipline, come within the scope of the Ministry of Pensions. Such men, if pensioned, are entitled under the Regulations to free treatment for disabilities due to or aggravated by service. I am not able to state how many members of the Mercantile Marine, of whom only a small proportion are pensionable, have applied for treatment for tuberculosis.

Oral Answers to Questions — CAPITAL ISSUES.

Sir HENRY DALZIEL (by Private Notice): asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether, in view of the statement made by the Leader of the House on Thursday that a new Order in Council would be substituted for the recent Order in Council affecting issues of capital and other commercial transactions, business and commercial men may proceed with their contracts to deliver, pay and deal in like manner as if the Order in Council above mentioned had not been promulgated as an Order having to any extent retrospective effect?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: I am now reconsidering the terms of the Order in Council referred to by my right, hon. Friend with a view to the issue without delay of a new Order, and in the meantime it is not proposed to take any action to enforce the prohibition contained in sub-paragraph (e) of Article 1 of the Order in Council of the 24th February, 1919. That is the paragraph of the Order which was referred to in the Debate the other day as having retrospective effect. The Order in Council is in force and cannot be repealed except by an Order in Council, but no action will be taken under that provision.

Sir H. DALZIEL: In view of the altered circumstances of this matter, will my right
hon. Friend in framing his Order consider favourably the question whether the Stock Exchange will be permitted to deal in these securities?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: That is provided for in the old Order. The Stock Exchanges of the country will be allowed to deal in whatever is allowed to be dealt in at all. It is essential that there should be equality of treatment.

Sir H. DALZIEL: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the opposite is the case, and that the Stock Exchange has been prohibited from dealing in these securities?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: What happened was that prior to the Order which gave rise to this discussion, the Stock Exchange voluntarily agreed not to deal in issues which were not licensed by the Committee.

Sir H. DALZIEL: It was the result of a bargain?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: There was no legal prohibition on dealing, but they agreed voluntarily not to deal. They represented to me, and I think it was only common justice, that if they were not to deal in them other people must not deal in them either. There must be one law for everyone. Very well, under the Order, as I first framed it, it was intended that these issues which had been made without licences should, if they were under the altered circumstances of to-day eligible for licence, obtain their licence, and then be dealt with in the Stock Exchanges if the Stock Exchanges wished, as well as outside. In the now Order which will be issued in place of the one that was issued the other day and criticised in this House last Thursday, whatever is permitted to be dealt with it will be open to the Stock Exchanges to deal in just as much as anyone else. Therefore these issues which have already been made without licence will not be prohibited at all, and it will be open to the Stock Exchanges to deal with them as well as to outsiders.

Mr. MacVEAGH: Will the right hon. Gentleman undertake that there shall be no further interference with the formation of private limited companies, where the public are not being asked to subscribe?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: In considering the terms of the new Order we are trying
to give the largest facilities for the development of business that we can. I do not think I can go further than that.

Mr. MacVEAGH: As the object of the setting up of this Committee is to conserve national resources and to prevent money being put into ventures which might be required for public purposes, what business has that Committee interfering in cases where the public are not subscribing? Can we have an undertaking about that?

Sir H. DALZIEL: Can the right hon. Gentleman say when he hopes to issue this thing, and will he see that it is issued as a Parliamentary Paper, and that Members do not have to go to the newspapers in order to get it?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: I certainly will give directions that it is to be issued as a Parliamentary Paper, and it will be issued as soon as possible. At the moment I am only anxious to get the terms exact, so that we shall have no further trouble about it, and it requires a little adjustment to find the right words.

Mr. MacVEAGH: Will he undertake that there will be no interference where the public are not being asked to subscribe money?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: I am not quite certain as to the scope of an undertaking of that sort. If a private subscription of money is subsequently to be dealt in, it has all the effect of a public issue.

Mr. MacVEAGH: I am referring to the question of private companies being formed for family purposes, which this Committee has refused again and again to permit to proceed. What right have they to interfere in a matter of that kind where no money is being subscribed by anybody?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: If there is no money subscribed, I do not think there is any interference.

Mr. MacVEAGH: The right hon. Gentleman has not answered my question. I know myself of a dozen cases in which they have interfered, and I now want to know whether that will cease?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: I tell the hon. Member that my object is to facilitate business development in this country. If the hon. Member will come to me afterwards
and explain exactly what is the condition he has in view, I will do my best to meet him.

Sir E. CARSON: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he will not consider that the time has come to take off all restrictions except those which prevent money from being invested abroad?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: No. I should like to do nothing better, but I am afraid I could not do that. I want to give a much greater latitude for the issue of new capital for business development at home, but I do not think I could take off all restrictions.

An HON. MEMBER: Will the right hon. Gentleman give an assurance that what is permissible for two or three individuals to do in their private capacity they will be permitted to do in their corporate capacity?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: I think the House will see the extreme difficulty of dealing with a matter of this delicacy and complexity by question and answer. I am doing my best to put the Order in a form which will meet the criticisms of substance which have been raised and which will facilitate the recommencement and development of business as much as possible, and I hope the House will be content to wait in the matter to see the terms of the new Order.

Oral Answers to Questions — GOVERNMENT OF IRELAND.

Mr. DEVLIN: May I ask the Leader of the House, now that the Chief Secretary has returned from Ireland, when he will be in a position to state what is the Irish policy of the Government?

Mr. BONAR LAW: It might be convenient as a beginning to direct that question to the Chief Secretary.

Mr. DEVLIN: The right hon. Gentleman has the determination of the time and place for the Government policies to be declared, and I want to know from him when he will give the House an opportunity, now that the Chief Secretary has returned, to discuss the Irish policy of His Majesty's Government?

Mr. BONAR LAW: The usual plan, as nobody knows better than the hon. Gentleman, is to begin by addressing such a
question to the Chief Secretary, who will then come to me and ask for a day to be given for it, if it is thought desirable.

Mr. DEVLIN: May I ask whether the House is not entitled, in view of the fact that the Government went out of their way to put a special paragraph in the King's Speech about Ireland, to know when he is going to give us an opportunity of discussing that passage in the King's Speech? We did raise the question on the Address, and we got no answer from the Treasury Bench because the Chief Secretary was absent, and I want to know, now that he is present, when we are going to get an answer?

Mr. BONAR LAW: The hon. Member is quite right. The House is well entitled to discuss any subject which it desires to discuss. If he will put the question to the Chief Secretary I am sure he will get an answer.

Captain REDMOND: When does the right hon. Gentleman expect the Chief Secretary to be in the House of Commons?

Mr. BONAR LAW: One of the best methods of making sure that he will be here would be to put down a number of questions.

Mr. DEVLIN: I put down a number of questions and they were not on the Paper to-day.

Oral Answers to Questions — CIVIL SERVICES (SUPPLEMENTARY ESTIMATE, 1918–19).

Estimate presented of the further Sum required to be voted for the service of the year ending 31st March, 1919 [by Command]; referred to a Standing Committee, and to be printed. [No. 35.]

Oral Answers to Questions — REPRESENTATION OF THE PEOPLE (RETURNING OFFICERS' EXPENSES) BILL.

Reported, without Amendment, from Standing Committee A.

Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 36.]

Minutes of the Proceedings of the Standing Committee to be printed. [No. 36.]

Bill, not amended (in the Standing Committee), to be taken into consideration To-morrow.

Oral Answers to Questions — SELECTION.

STANDING COMMITTEE A.

Sir Samuel Roberts reported from the Committee of Selection; That they had discharged the following Members from Standing Committee A: Mr. Baldwin and Mr. Pratt.

Sir Samuel Roberts further reported from the Committee; That they had discharged the following Members from Standing Committee A: Mr. Arnold, Mr. Hogge, Mr. Murray Macdonald, Colonel Wedgwood, Mr. Daniel Wilson, and Mr. Thomas Williams; and had appointed in substitution: Major Barnes, Mr. Galbraith, Mr. M'Guffin, Dr. Murray, Mr. Charles White, and Sir Robert Thomas.

Sir Samuel Roberts further reported from the Committee; That they had added to Standing Committee A the following Members: Sir Ryland Adkins, Mr. Thomas Davies (Cirencester), Major Hills, and Major M'Micking.

STANDING COMMITTEE C.

Sir Samuel Roberts further reported from the Committee; That they had discharged the following Members from Standing Committee C: Mr. Greer and Lieutenant-Colonel Sir John Norton-Griffiths; and had appointed in substitution: Mr. Bennett and Major Sir Bertram Falle.

Sir Samuel Roberts further reported from the Committee; That they had nominated the following Member to serve on Standing Committee C: Brigadier-General Cockerill.

STANDING COMMITTEE B.

Sir Samuel Roberts further reported from the Committee; That they had discharged the following Member from Standing Committee B: Colonel Royds; and had appointed in substitution: Mr. Greer.

STANDING COMMITTEE D.

Sir Samuel Roberts further reported from the Committee; That they had nominated the following Members to serve on Standing Committee D: Sir William Barton, Sir Edward Beauchamp, Mr.Bowerman, Major Brassey, Major Breese, Mr. Broad, Lieutenant-Colonel Burgoyne, Colonel Campion, Lieutenant-Colonel Spender Clay, Mr. Clough, Sir Clifford Cory, Mr. Alfred Thomas Davies (Lincoln), Mr. Bartley Denniss, Mr. Finney, Mr. Foreman, Mr. Glanville, Mr. Duncan
Graham, Major Henderson, Mr. Hurd, Mr. Irving, Mr. Edward Kelly, Mr. Kenyon, Mr. Lindsay, Major William Murray, Mr. Reginald Nicholson, Mr. Pennefather, Sir John Randles, Mr. Frederick Roberts, Mr. Royce, Sir William Seager, Mr. Seddon, Mr. Strauss, Mr. Thomson, Mr. Tootill, Sir John Tudor Walters, Colonel Weston, Lieutenant-Commander Williams, Colonel Penry Williams, Lieutenant-Colonel Willoughby, and Mr. William Young.

Reports to lie upon the Table.

Orders of the Day — SUPPLY.

CIVIL SERVICES SUPPLEMENTARY ESTIMATES, 1918–19.

[MR. WHITLEY in the Chair.]

MINISTRY OF LABOUR.

Motion made, and Question proposed,

"That a Supplementary sum, not exceeding £196,466, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1919, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Ministry of Labour and Subordinate Departments, including the Contribution to the Unemployment Insurance Fund and Repayments to Associations pursuant to Sections 85 and 106 of the National Insurance Act, 1911, and the National Insurance (Part II.) (Munition Workers) Act, 1916."

4.0 P.M.

Mr. HOGGE: I should have thought that my right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour would start this discussion, in view of the fact that notice was given when this Vote was brought up on Thursday last, that this large question of the training of the demobilised officers and men of His Majesty's Forces was to be under consideration. The Committee will observe that a revised Estimate, which is practically a new Vote altogether, of £150,000, is taken for this purpose. What the House would like to know is precisely what arrangements have been come to between the Ministry of Pensions and the Ministry of Labour with regard to the training of these men. As the Committee knows, under the Ministry of Pensions Bill the whole subject of training and treatment was entrusted to the Pensions Minister, and since the House gave its sanction to that procedure the Ministry of Pensions has devolved the functions the House handed over to them to other Ministers. They have handed over, for example, the treatment of disabled men suffering from tuberculosis to the Local Government Board, and now, we understand, that they have handed over to the Ministry of Labour the training of disabled men and officers. But there is added to that a new function, namely, the training of demobilised men and officers who are not disabled, but who, on account of their war service, are not able to pursue their pre-
vious occupations and who desire to be trained in new occupations and professions. I think it is useful when a Vote of this kind is put down, which, after all, affects the future not only of the men but of the officers in the Army and the Navy, that the House ought to have some statement from the Minister in charge of this Estimate as to what he means to do. Incidentally, it is a personal pleasure to myself to welcome another Edinburgh man. We are all glad to seethe Minister of Labour in his place for the first time in order to take part in the discussion of this House. I should be glad to hear what the Minister of Labour has to say in regard to this question of training, and possibly it would save time if one spoke after his statement rather than before. I would only like to make this preliminary suggestion. I am convinced, and I think the Committee is convinced, that it is going to pay the State every time to spend money now on that kind of training in order to save money in years to come. If, as is done now, you send disabled men to be trained under the Ministry of Pensions scheme and the remuneration is not nearly sufficient to maintain them and their wives and families in comfort then the tendency obviously is for those men to go into other occupations where they will get more money and they will therefore lose their training. The net result is that every one of these men will claim and will get a larger pension and will be a greater charge on the State. Two things the State wants to do. They want to give the men a new interest in life and remove them from what has been referred to by hon. Members as a handicap—no occupation while they are disabled. They also want, for economic and industrial reasons, to make as many men fit to engage in the industrial life of the future as possible. Both of these things will save an enormous amount of money to the State. If, therefore, my right hon. Friend can tell the Committee straight away what is in the mind of the Ministry of Labour the Committee will be glad to give such helpful criticism as it can.

The MINISTER Of LABOUR (Sir Robert Horne): I rise with diffidence to make my first speech in the House of Commons, but I feel sustained by the recollection that this House has always shown a generous spirit towards its new Members. The Member for Edinburgh
has made some criticism of the fact that I did not begin by giving some explanation of particular items that are covered by this Vote. If I have erred, I urge my ignorance of the proper practice. The question of the training of disabled soldiers is one of the most important with which the country can deal at the present time. The problem is one that must excite the solicitude and the sympathy of everybody who values the great services these men have rendered to the country. The particular position with regard to them at the present time is this. Up till only a few weeks ago their case was dealt with entirely by the Ministry of Pensions. About a month ago it was decided by the War Cabinet that the industrial training of disabled soldiers was to be put under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Labour. That conclusion was arrived at very largely for the reason that the Minister of Labour is much more in touch with those great trade organisations whose consent, approval and help are most necessary to a successful carrying out of any scheme of training.
The Royal Warrant still stands in favour of the Ministry of Pensions. The necessary alterations have not yet taken place, but in view of the great work which the Ministry of Labour has to undertake in connection with disabled soldiers, we have already made certain arrangements. We were in a position to command some of the national factories, and at the present time we have been investigating the conditions under which they are worked in order to select the most suitable for this purpose. Final arrangements have not yet been made, but these are being hurried on with all the rapidity that is possible. The conditions under which the training is to be given are already contained in the Royal Warrant, and will be familiar to the House. It may be remembered that the training grant given to each disabled soldier is fixed at 33s. a week plus certain allowances for children; in respect of the first child 6s., and in respect of succeeding children 3s. for each. There is also an allowance for the wife, and there is a separation allowance in the case of a man undergoing his training having to be away from home. That, I think, really covers the case of the disabled soldier. I am not sure that my hon. Friend wishes me to give any further explanation with regard to this matter, but so far as the present condition of things is concerned I
have fully disclosed everything which has taken place in regard to the arrangements that have been made for the training of disabled soldiers.

Colonel YATE: Do the same rules apply for officers?

Sir R. HORNE: The question of officers has been raised, and perhaps the Committee would like to hear what I have to say on the question of officers. What is really covered by the Vote before the Committee concerns a different Department of the Ministry of Labour altogether—the Department known as the Appointments Department, which deals with the training on demobilisation of officers and men. I say officers and men, but it is really officers and men of like standard, men of a certain education which fits them for a position in, perhaps, professional life or for the higher grades in business. The Appointments Department was formed in 1918 for the special purpose of making arrangements for the future of the young officers and men who found themselves stranded at the end of the War either through the interruption of their ordinary training or from the fact that businesses which they had begun had disappeared during the time of the great conflict. The Appointments Department acts in this way. In the first place, it establishes committees which act as guides to officers and men of the position I have described. They advise them of particular courses which they ought to take, and obtain for them information so as to disclose in which businesses the earliest opening may be obtained. Recently, in order to facilitate the arrangements that I have described, groups of business and professional men were sent to France, one group was attached to each Army, and the people in each Army who wished for advice as to their careers at home were given the advantage of the assistance of these groups of business men. We found this to be of the greatest possible help and assistance to officers and men who were puzzled in regard to their future careers. The next function which the Appointments Department exercises is this. It acts as an exchange which puts the employer in touch with the officer, and already during the time in which it has been in existence it has brought together officers and employers in over 130,000 cases. We are not in a position to say exactly how many men have obtained situations by means of this mechanism, but we do know that it is very large. There is no system by which
an appintment once got is duly notified. Perhaps that is a gap in the method. But, in any event, we know that the number who have obtained appointments by means of introduction through the Appointments Department is a very large number indeed. Further than that, the Appointments Department carries out a system of training for officers and men. Supposing a man wishes to take up an agricultural career, what the Appointments Department does is to find out all about his capacity and his suitability for an agricultural life. Then they pass him on to the Board of Agriculture. The Board of Agriculture makes its own examination, and arrives at a conclusion as to whether the man is suitable, and, if he is, he is sent to one of their training centres. An allowance is made of £50 for the training, and, in addition, a subsistence allowance of a certain amount limited by the sum of £175 in one year.
In a similar way, supposing a man wishes to go to a university, or to complete an educational training on which he had entered prior to the War, the Appointments Department investigates his case, and, if he is suitable, his name is passed to the Board of Education. The Board of Education thereafter deals with him, supervises his case, sends him to the appropriate institution, and, in a similar way, decides upon the amount of grant to be given to aid him in the career he has taken up. If, on the other hand, the man desires to take up a business career—to enter into commerce or industry—then his case is looked after by the Appointments Department itself. It deals with his case; it finds, if it can, the appropriate business for him to embark upon, and it decides the amount of grant which he ought to be able to obtain for the purpose of keeping him, and, if necessary, his children, while he is undergoing the process of training. That, roughly, is a sketch of what the Appointments Department does, and, if the Committee will allow me to conclude this picture of its training activities, I would like to add this. In addition to the Appointments Department under the Ministry of Labour, there is a section which is known as the Industrial Training Section, which was set up only a few weeks ago under a distinguished educationist in the person of Mr. James Currie. Under that section the case of the disabled soldier will come, but it is also part of
its duty to deal with the case of the apprentice whose apprenticeship has been broken through his having to enlist in the Army for the War.

Mr. CROOKS: Is there a limit to age?

Sir R. HORNE: There is a limit to age. I will explain that, if the Committee will allow me, in a moment. I think the case of the apprentice, perhaps, is one which will appeal very readily to the sympathies of everybody. The apprentice, as a rule, is a boy for whom his parents have made some sacrifice in order that he should become a skilled workman, instead of an unskilled workman. A boy who went into the Army at the age of eighteen may have lost two, or even three, years of his apprenticeship, and the situation of the boy coming home is one which deserves our utmost consideration. He has, as I say, lost his period of training. He comes back a man, but he has lost the time in which he could have acquired skill, and he is not a skilled man. He may have married in the interval. He is unable to live upon an apprentice's wage. The result is that his needs are greater than what he can earn as an apprentice, and, on the other hand, his skill is not so great that his employer can give him the wage of a skilled man. It is perfectly obvious that, under these circumstances, the State is bound to give its assistance. We cannot afford to lose the chance of skilled men in these days. Accordingly, a scheme was approved, under which it was arranged that an apprentice should obtain something approximating to the wage of a journeyman—and the only question which remains to be decided is the precise proportion of the assistance which the State is to give. The apprentice is to have the opportunity of completing his course of training in some shop, and, if a shop is not available, then he will get the chance of being trained in some other way, which will be arranged by the Training Section of the Ministry of Labour. If he has got to be trained otherwise than in a shop he will get 33s. a week during his period of training, and he will get an allowance, similar to what I have described in the case of the disabled soldier, for his children.
At the moment, negotiations are going on both with employers and with the trade unions with regard to the precise course of training which will be approved of, so that the man may be acknowledged
as a skilled man after he has come through the training which we have devised for him. It is perfectly obvious that in some cases he will not be able to spend so long a time as he would have done under ordinary circumstances, and the course of training which will be given to him will be of an intensive kind, so that he may be able to acquire the necessary skill in a shorter period than would be the limit of ordinary apprenticeship. A question was asked with regard to the age at which the boy would be dealt with. He does not get the advantage of the scheme which I have described unless the natural period of his apprenticeship has been exhausted—that is to say, if when he comes home he is still within the range of time in which he would have been an apprentice had he never been to the War, he does not begin to get the advantage of the scheme until after the period of his ordinary apprenticeship would have been exhausted, and, so far as the age is concerned, he does not begin to get any advantage until after the age of twenty-one in England and twenty-three in Scotland. [HON. MEMBERS: "Why?"]

Mr. HOGGE: Another injustice to Scotland.

Sir R. HORNE: I am not quite certain why. It must be that in Scotland we mature more slowly. At any rate, it is a longer apprenticeship. The figures were arrived at by people who are acquainted with the conditions upon which it is necessary to decide. I think that really concludes what I need say upon the Vote which is on the Paper to-day, and if there is any other point which the Committee wish to raise, I shall have an opportunity of answering it.

Mr. T. P. O'CONNOR: Might I ask whether special provision has been made in the case of the blind?

Sir R. HORNE: The blind will, of course, come under the ordinary case of the disabled soldier, but there are special considerations which apply to the blind which will necessarily cause differences in their training. In any case where it seems to be necessary, special arrangements will be made to have all people whose conditions are the same trained together, and I have no doubt at all that
when the final arrangements are made there will be special places for the blind to be trained in.

Sir EDGAR JONES: Will the hon. Gentleman consult the joint committees, who have been engaged in training these disabled soldiers up to now with the Ministry of Pensions, before adopting a new scheme? Because some are very much concerned as to what is to be done with regard to various schemes in hand.

Sir R. HORNE: I have not the slightest hesitation in saying that we would welcome all advice these Committees could give, and, if necessary, they will be consulted.

Mr. HOGGE: I think the Committee will agree with me that the hon. Gentleman had no need to ask its indulgence in so far as his maiden effort is concerned, and that he is quite capable of holding his own in any criticism or opposition in the House in the future. I am sure we are all glad to have the advantage of his presence. I am rather disappointed, however, at the meagre statement of my hon. friend in regard to the training and provision for payment of disabled men. What I find, as a matter of fact—and probably many Members of the House find the same thing—is that the disabled man in training has at the back of his head the notion that his labour is being exploited by the factory where he is being trained. There is, for example, to-day a strike in Dublin at the Government's instructional factory, affecting, I think, something like 250 disabled men who were supposed to be being trained in that factory to take up some further vocation, and I have had the opportunity of discussing this with Mr. Currie, to whom my hon. Friend referred as head of the Training Department of the Ministry, and with the men concerned, and it does seem, at any rate, a fact that the disabled man, while he is engaged in this work, is receiving a remuneration for that work, but that he is not being trained. Whenever a man in one of these instructional factories gets off the work of running a machine, he is up against the difficulty of getting skilled instruction from any trade unionist. I am rather in a quandary with regard to this, because I know hon. Friends who sit around me are trade unionists, and that, in their own hearts and minds they have no desire to prevent the disabled man receiving skilled instruction. But there are certain difficulties in the way which prevent the skilled trade
unionist in this country lending all his skill and all his enthusiasm at the moment to the training of these men.

Colonel GREIG: What are the difficulties?

Mr. HOGGE: The difficulties are these. Probably some trade unionists will explain them more intimately than I can. But there is the question, after the men have been trained, as to what is to be considered a satisfactory test for the admission of the men to the skilled trade union. Take the case of Scotland, in which we have longer apprenticeships. It is rather a tall order to ask the skilled trade unionist, who has put in many years at his trade, to accept as a fully-fledged man of his union a disabled man after a limited period of instruction. It can be easily seen what difficulties arise from that, and I should have been glad to know from my hon. Friend whether it is not going to be possible—I do not know what my trade unionist Friends in the House think of this suggestion—after a maximum amount of training, to get over the difficulty by a test which will be accepted by the trade unionists of the country and by those who represent the discharged and demobilised soldiers. I am perfectly certain of this, that the trade unionist is not giving of his best at the moment, and the discharged man is not getting what he might expect to receive, because of certain barriers which have not yet been broken down. I imagine the Committee does want those barriers to be broken down. I know the average trade unionist has no desire to make it difficult for the discharged man to get back into a skilled trade. I think one of the difficulties, however, is that which my right hon. Friend has just given in connection with this particular point.
The second point of criticism—which I hope is not destructive, but is given with the object of finding a way out—because we all want this question of the apprentices properly attended to—is this: I was rather uncertain about what my right hon. Friend said, and as to whether it is the case that the allowances in regard to apprentices does not come into force until the period of apprenticeship is finished. Obviously, if you take a lad who joined up at eighteen, say, in the second year of his apprenticeship, and latterly comes back, demobilised, after two or three years' service in the Army, to finish, it may be—as in Scotland—his seven years' apprenticeship—does my right hon. Friend mean to
say that that lad, having had three years' apprenticeship cut out by the War, has to resume in what will then be the fifth year of his apprenticeship at the low rate of apprenticeship wages, without receiving any additional help from the Ministry of Labour? I hope my right hon. Friend sees the point, for it surely cannot be right that that boy has to complete his apprenticeship before he gets this allowance. Obviously, if the boy had taken his apprenticeship on the ordinary terms he would by now have been a skilled worker, and would not have required the grant suggested by my right hon. Friend. I shall be glad, if wrong, to be corrected on that point. As a matter of fact, any grant which is given, or ought to be given, should be given to the lad while he is completing his interrupted apprenticeship, and on the basis of what he might have earned had he been a skilled man engaged in the work to which he had been apprenticed. I shall be very glad for my right hon. Friend to deal with this point.
My further short point is this: The right hon. Gentleman has not told us exactly what institutions the Ministry of Labour are dealing with or are engaged in with regard to this training. I need not refer my right hon. Friend to one example of training with which he is probably as familiar as myself in our own city of Edinburgh. There we have what I believe is one of the best facilities for training discharged men that exists in the United Kingdom. The Ministry of Pensions had a Report made upon all the systems obtaining in this country, and that Report stated that the facilities afforded in Edinburgh were of the best in the country. I believe there are certain Members of this House who were engaged upon that Report, and who can give their personal experience in regard to these training shops. In that very Report I remember phrases being used in regard to other training facilities in the country in which those who reported on the scheme said this:
That the machinery in those shops for training these men was of the most antiquated description.
We are in this difficulty this evening: Before my right hon. Friend finishes I trust he will tell the House what has been done by the Ministry of Pensions—for this applies to the same men—though the Ministry of Labour, of course, cannot be held responsible for what does not come under their purview. For this reason I
point the thing out; whether it is under one or the other Ministry, or both, what the House wants is that these men shall get the very best training possible, and shall get it in the best and most effective way. I should like my right hon. Friend to say whether this scheme covers the whole country, and how it deals with the question of the training of those men, and whether or not he is allowing that training to grow up in a haphazard way. If I may revert again for the moment to the existing strike at Birmingham of the 250 men, trained in the instructional factory, presumably under the control of the Ministry of Labour—in their case there was nothing else available at the moment when they began, which was when the Armistice was declared. I rather myself wonder, however—I do not know whether or not the suggestion is of any use—whether the model existing in Edinburgh, and which is an extremely good one, could not be copied all over the country by bringing that training into co-relation and co-operation with the educational authorities in each of our great cities. It has done very well in Edinburgh. In fact, it is in the training shops of their own technical school that so much of this training is done, and as members of the Committee will realise, as frequently happens with disabled men, they can be so much better trained in the smaller kind of shops, with the right kind of tuition, than in larger workshops.
While I am glad to hear what my right hon. Friend has said, I want him to appreciate the fact that there is no subject which the House of Commons and this Committee is more concerned in than that this problem should not be lost sight of. After all, we have given a pledge to the men concerned and to ourselves that once they did the work they were asked to do we should do our share, and one does not like to know of men scattered all over the country who are not getting the facilities for putting them back into civil life. We should like to be assured that this is going to be a real live department in the Ministry of Labour. Frequently one Government Department pushes off one or other obligation on to another Department, which pushes it still further on. For instance, I do not suppose if one had not seen this Vote that anybody would for a moment have mentioned that it was possible to raise the question of pensions on
it, and the treatment of men who are receiving pensions. I am desirous that this should not be hidden up in a great many other items. While one could say a great deal more, I trust that my right hon. Friend will take the three suggestions I have made into his consideration, and so let us help him in what will be one of the most satisfactory pieces of work in which he could engage while at the Ministry of Labour.

Mr. ALFRED HOPKINSON: I trust the Committee will not consider it discourteous on my part if I speak without preparation, because I did not know that this was coming forward. As I have had some personal experience of this question, both as regards the apprentices and in respect of disabled men in my own works, I think, perhaps, I might add to the discussion something useful by bringing forward that experience. My first point is this: I am strongly of opinion that all these things ought not to be left in the dead hand of the State. There are many responsibilities that may and should be undertaken by the various trades of this country, which are quite well able to undertake them without all the cost falling upon the taxpayer in general, or their asking the taxpayers to do it for them. I do not desire to waste the time of the Committee, bat the scheme I have been working for some little time at my own engineering works may in its narration prove interesting and useful to the House. At Mossley I employ skilled labour and also many semi-skilled men. My works are not very large, and so we are able to make experiments, both with regard to labour conditions and other things, and particularly as regards this question of the training of apprentices and disabled men satisfactorily, I trust, and without ruining the whole business.
As regards my own apprentices. I went into the Army at the beginning of the War, and was immediately followed by all the boys of fifteen and upwards, who promptly said they were going there too. They gave their ages as eighteen, nineteen, and twenty-one, said they were unmarried, and were accepted, leaving me to settle with their parents. These boys—that is to say, those who have not been killed—are beginning to come back at the age of nineteen and twenty, thoroughly full-grown men in mind and body. It seems to me most important that these boys should be in a position to marry at the earliest pos-
sible moment. I mean to say that there will be endless social difficulties which we shall have to face if we do not render that possible for them. So the plan we have got at the works is that where a boy left at fifteen or sixteen, having done a year or two of his seven years' apprenticeship as a fitter, turner, or in a similar skilled trade that when he comes back he receives exactly the same rate of pay as he would have been receiving had he remained with us during the War. Hon. Members will see the effect of that. The years that the youth has spent abroad in the service of his country simply drop out. We regard those years as having been worked at the trade, and the period for coming out of his time is exactly the same as if he had not gone into the Army. His wages are given accordingly.
Take a case in point. I remember one lad. He was an apprentice-turner. At the age of eighteen he went into the Army and served in Egypt, France, and other parts of the theatre of war and was demobilised quite recently. He still wished to be the same trade. He came into the shop again and was paid forty shillings or forty-five shillings for a forty-eight hours week. In about two years time he will be paid as a journeyman. Of course, it might be said that it is impossible to train these boys in the two years that is left to them to a trade of the sort I have named. It is not. Hon. Members on the Labour Benches who have had some experience of the engineering trade will agree that, supposing the employer keeps the boy at a good class of instructional work and lets him go at it the whole time, and the men in the shop, to the best of their ability, teach that boy, that in two years with the brightened intelligence that he has got in the Army—I know it is customary in this respect to sneer at the Army, but as a matter of fact it does brighten up these boys—I say that with the experience and with the goodwill of the men in the shop and the goodwill of the employer I am quite convinced that a boy, in such a case, in two years will be as good a journeyman as anyone who has been there the whole of the seven years. These two factors, however, come in. First of all, the goodwill of the employer, and secondly, that of the trade unionists. The employer spends the money, because it does cost money, and it is a loss to the employer to do this, and in the second place, you must have the goodwill of the
men. In this particular instance I am pleased to say I can afford to do it. I have suffered through the War as others, but I can afford to pay this money, and I find my own men and the officials of the trade unions concerned have all fallen in with my plan. So much for the apprentices. There is absolutely no cause for the taxpayer to come in at all. The men supply the instruction and I supply the money. If such a thing is done throughout the whole of the engineering trade it is perfectly possible for every employer in the country to do it. So with many other trades.
In the case of the disabled men a great deal depends on the amount of the disablement. It is extremely difficult to put a man into the engineering trade who has lost an arm. At the same time there are a certain number of jobs in any works—store-keeping and the like—which these men can do just as well as a man in the possession of all his limbs and faculties. All jobs of this sort in my works are reserved for the men who cannot be put to a trade. In respect to disabled men lost legs makes the thing more difficult, because such a man must not be kept standing—he cannot be a fitter—but there are many jobs that he could be put to. There is, for instance, certain machine tool work. I trust I am not boring the House with all these details. [Hon. Members: "No."] There is certain machine tool work that such a man can do just as well, though both his legs are missing, and as if he was perfectly well.
In cases of that sort what we do is, we take two machines of a similar type placed together in the works. To one of these machines we put a fully-skilled trade unionist and to the other there is a totally disabled man from the Army. For these two machines I pay the double district rate for that particular work. In the early stages the skilled man receives the greater proportion of these wages than does the unskilled man. It is his duty to teach the unskilled man to help him in his work, and to do his level best to make him a skilled man as soon as possible. Then the wages are paid on a sliding scale, so that as the disabled man gets more and more towards the position of a skilled man his wages rise, and the other man's wages fall, until eventually the verdict is given, either by myself or by a trade union official, that the man is worth the trade union rate of wages. He is paid this with the knowledge that the union will admit him to
membership, and the union has the satisfaction of knowing that he will get the trade union rate of wages. As the hon. Member for Edinburgh has said, there maybe a certain feeling on the part of the trade unionists. Honestly, I have not found it. I know that this is so in one particular trade which I need not mention. If the thing is done by employers with thorough goodwill and with the intention of benefiting the men and the country, and not with a view of making something out of them, these difficulties will not arise. With regard to my scheme, everybody can see perfectly well that I am not getting anything out of it. As I pointed out to the trade union officials, my plan stops that bugbear of the unions which is termed "the thin edge of the wedge." As a matter of fact, it is the thick end of the wedge. I think all these difficulties will disappear in the course of time. I hope it will not be thought that I am boasting, but I wanted to point out a direct case to show how these apprentices can be absorbed into their own trade without any cost to the taxpayers. The engineering trade has benefited by the War, and it is our obvious duty to spend some of the money made in that trade in doing the best we can for those who have not been so fortunate.

Mr. JOSEPH JOHNSTONE: I was very glad to hear from the Minister of Labour that the training of disabled sailors and soldiers is to be handed over to the Labour Ministry. I happen to be the Chairman of a Committee formed for the purpose of drawing up a scheme for dealing with disabled sailors and soldiers in the furniture trade, and in connection with that proposal I found the trade union leaders were just as sympathetic and earnest as the employers in their desire to do the best they could to make the scheme a success. In this particular trade, although the normal period of apprenticeship is from five to six years, the trade union leaders assented to the period of training being reduced to two years, one year at a technical school and one year as the improving period in the workshop. During the whole of our preparations for that scheme no body of men could have acted more patriotically than the trade union executive. The difficulty is that there are not sufficient technical training centres for the purpose. I was asked by the Labour Department to visit a
number of training centres, and I had occasion to go to Queen Mary's Auxiliary Hospital a Brighton and Queen Mary's Training Workshops at Roehampton, in order to see the work that was being done there. I have also visited a number of technical training centres throughout the country, and my experience is that those schools are most inadequate. In many instances they have not got the proper tools, and they are not fully equipped for instruction. If the instructor had once been qualified, at any rate he has now become fossilised, and the whole of the equipment ought to be brought more up to date. In my opinion, the best place to train these men would be in the workshop, and you will not get enough men trained if you depend upon technical schools.
With regard to apprentices, the time spent by these boys in the Army has not been lost. At the workshops at Brighton I found young men twenty years of age who, prior to the War, had been doing labouring work, some of them employed in coal mines, and these young men in the workshops were turning out good work after a few weeks' experience. When a lad has reached the years of discretion he will learn more and learn quicker than when he was an irresponsible schoolboy and more inclined to play and waste his time. I urge in connection with the training of disabled soldiers and sailors that a greater effort should be made to make arrangements for them in suitable factories under the supervision not only of the employer, but of committees of the trade unions. The modern system of doing work largely by machinery cannot have its full play in a technical school, and there are very few schools fitted up with machinery to give proper training to these men to make goods under present conditions in which machinery is so largely used. I may say as a word of comfort to my hon. Friend the Member for East Edinburgh (Mr. Hogge) that of all the training schools I have visited I have found none to compare with the Tyne-castle School, and I wish to pay that compliment to Edinburgh. But as a rule the schools are quite inadequate if disabled soldiers and sailors are to be trained to any extent, because there are not sufficient schools to go round. I suggest to the Minister of Labour that he should utilise to a greater extent the factorial and workshop for training purposes.
In connection with the scheme I have mentioned, when a man has had twelve months at the technical school and twelve months at the workshop his wages are to be determined not only by the employer, but by a committee of workmen in the shop. For the first month the employer will determine the wage, but after that time the men will have a say in determining those wages. If due facilities are to be afforded to these disabled soldiers and sailors it certainly cannot be afforded by the present technical school facilities, and if you enter into a large programme of fitting up technical schools with suitable teachers I am afraid you are entering upon a large expenditure which I do not think will be attended with good results. The best way to train these men is to train them in factories under the supervision of large-spirited employers associated with a committee of his own workmen and trade union men, and I am sure that can be done with great advantage not only to the workmen, but to the State.

Lieutenant-Colonel Sir JOHN HOPE: With regard to the training of officers and men who have returned to civil life, I wish to draw attention to one or two points. I am glad to hear that the Minister of Labour is going to provide a certain amount of money for the training of officers to allow them to pursue their educational courses. I hope he will consider those men who are now officers, and who joined up early in the War and have since married, and who now have no provision for their families, and require to take some fully paid post. I suggest in those cases that the Minister might agree to make an additional allowance to the officers while they are in the workshop and other businesses until they have learned enough to enable them to support their wives and families. It is true that a great many improvident marriages have been made, but we have to accept that fact. I am referring to the class of officers who married on receiving a Commission. There are also men in the Army who were married when they joined up, who took a Commission, and are now in a very difficult position, for they have no real occupation to support their wives and families, and I hope the Minister of Labour will consider those cases.
5.0 P.M.
In reference to the question of apprentices certainly the scheme which the Minister has outlined appears very satisfactory, but I think he admitted that his
scheme is not yet in working order. I have had a case referred to me of an apprentice to a chemist; he has been discharged and he was anxious to continue his apprenticeship. This young man is only receiving 6s. per week, which obviously is quite insufficient to support him, and unless something is done quickly in this and in many other similar cases, these young men will have to give up their apprenticeships because they are not ably to maintain themselves. I hope the Minister of Labour will at once take steps to get his scheme into going order so that these apprentices may soon receive journeymen's wages. Perhaps it may be possible to make some provision for apprentices who have been discharged under very difficult circumstances. I was very disappointed to see that the age at winch an apprentice could receive the allowance is two years higher in Scotland than in England, and I can hardly believe the present Minister of Labour will allow that inequality to continue. I also notice that the Minister said that no allowance would be granted to apprentices unless and until they arrive at the age at which their apprenticeship would have terminated. That may inflict rather a hardship, and it is precisely the same case as that which I mentioned in the case of officers. An apprentice has enlisted and now he is married, and is faced with, the position that because he has not arrived at the age of his apprenticeship being completed he cannot receive this grant. If that rule is adhered to many of them will not be able to pursue their apprenticeships. I hope the Minister of Labour will be able to ensure that all Government Departments shall give their full share of employment to ex-officers and soldiers. I suggest, as the Ministry of Labour is undertaking the reinstatement of ex-soldiers and sailors, that all appointments in Government Departments, and certainly subordinate Departments, should be in the hands of the Minister of Labour. I notice that last Thursday there was a question put to the Postmaster-General:
Colonel Yate asked whether, in view of the importance to recruiting, and to the fact that a large number of Regular soldiers have already registered their names for permanent positions in the Post Office, it is intended that the 50 per cent. of vacancies in the Post Office reserved in the past for the Regular ex-Servicemen will still be reserved for them?
The answer was:
Mr. Illingworth: All vacancies for postmen and porters which are not required for ex-boy
messengers will be given to ex-soldiers and sailors. I hope that the 50 per cent. proportion will be exceeded during the period following the end of the War."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 27th February, 1919, col. 1957.]
That was only vacancies for postmen and porters. There are many other Government Departments, and I only quote the Post Office because it is an outstanding Department. At the end of this War we ought not to have 50 per cent., but 90 per cent. of the appointments reserved for ex-soldiers and sailors. I cannot for the life of me see why only vacancies for postmen and porters in the Post Office should be reserved for them. I hope that the Minister of Labour will take the question up and urge all the other Government Departments to give first claim on all vacancies to ex-soldiers and sailors. If that is done, it will probably ensure that they get the vacancies in the best possible manner.

Mr. CAIRNS: I welcome the statement from one hon. Gentleman that the training of demobilised men has the sympathy of the trade unions. I was asked on Sunday last in the city of Newcastle to raise this matter in the House. We have an orthopædic centre there, and the Government have been good enough to make a bargain with us. If we raise £40,000, they will give us £10,000 from the Treasury. We have raised £80,000, so that we want the £10,000. In justification of my statement that this object has the sympathy of the trade unions, I may say that eighty of our collieries have levied themselves to support the orthopædic centre in Newcastle. We are sympathetic because these men are our own sons and brothers. We have lost 3,000 men killed from the county of Northumberland alone, and if you multiply that figure by twenty you will probably get the number of miners that have been killed. Some hon. Gentlemen said that this was to be no cost to the taxpayer. I think the taxpayer ought to pay his share towards the training of these wounded men. A lot has been said about officers, but I want to put in a plea for Tommy—that man who has probably lost both his arms or both his legs, or the disabled man who has five or six children. We want to do all that we possibly can to restore these men, and I would suggest to the Ministry of Labour, who has charge of this matter, that he should do all he can to help us. Workmen working for a daily wage have levied themselves, some to the extent of 10s. and
others to the extent of £1. It is going to cost us £150,000. We have raised £80,000, and I can give the House the guarantee that we shall not be long in raising the other £70,000. There are some objections raised in some trade union quarters, because these men are not getting the same rate per hour as other men. The pay ought to be made up by the Government. A Government representative came down to Newcastle, and promised that if a man earned £3 before he enlisted, and by reason of having been wounded could now only earn £2, the Government would make up the difference of £1 per week. I asked who was going to raise the question, and he said, "You, for one." The State is a great employer of labour, and it ought to be at least as generous as my hon. Friend on my left. If there is any difference in a man's earning power between the time when he was whole and enlisted, and now that he has been wounded, it ought to be made up by the richest State in the world. The right hon. Gentleman the ex-Chancellor of the Exchequer, in appealing for War Loans, said that whenever he wanted money he could always get more than he asked for. The country, therefore, being extremely rich, it is not fair that our men, who have been wounded and maimed, should have to go and earn less than others who have never been in the War, and I suggest that the Government ought to help us in all big cities where men are being trained in orthopædic centres.

Mr. R. YOUNG: I want to ask the Minister of Labour one or two questions relating to these Supplementary Estimates. In the first place, I wish to draw his attention to paragraph (e), where it is said that the total excess is £65,000, of which £54,300 will be met from savings, and I want to ask him if he is taking any steps to abolish overtime and thus secure employment for some of those who are out of employment at the present time. I also want to know what rates are paid for overtime. Is it time and a quarter, time and a half, or double time? I have heard that it is less per hour than the amount paid for the ordinary working hours of the day. If that is so, then there is need for radical alteration in the rates of pay for overtime. I desire him to get rid of overtime as much as possible, so as to secure employment for other people, and possibly for disabled soldiers. I now come to paragraph (x).
There is a difficulty in certain trade unions allowing men to be trained in their respective trades, not that we have any lack of sympathy, or that we desire to prevent them being trained, but we want to know that satisfactory conditions are attached to their training, satisfactory to the men who are to be trained and at the same time satisfactory to the men who have already been trained or are in process of being trained. One thing which at present leads to ex-soldiers and sailors being prevented from entering certain workshops is the fact that some employers of labour are not too anxious to restart able-bodied apprentices who have returned from the front in their occupation. Lads after having been two years at a trade have gone into the Army and have been away two or three years. They are now coming back and presenting themselves for re-employment, and, sad to say, many of them are not being re-employed. It is evidently the opinion of the employer that the lad has forgotten a good deal of that which he learned during his first two years, and I am afraid also that the employer does not want to pay him any rate which is an advance upon the one which he was receiving when be joined the Army. You cannot expect men to allow new men to come into a trade when there are men already clamouring for work who have been at the trade and have served part of their apprenticeship. I am not referring to premium apprentices at the present time. That is one of the difficulties.
I have only recently come from the North of Scotland. I went up to Dundee and Kirkcaldy especially to forward a scheme which we have submitted for the training of disabled soldiers and sailors, and to induce them to agree to the inclusion of these workmen in the workshops. While they are willing that these men should be trained, they cannot consent until certain things have been done. They want a guarantee that the returning apprentice will have an opportunity of completing his apprenticeship before new men are taken into the industry. I hope the Minister of Labour will assent to that. I want to ask another question in relation to the able-bodied apprentice. What machinery is to be laid down to secure that he will get an intensive training? I quite understand that the intensive training for disabled soldiers and sailors will be governed by a body to be set up, but I have not come across anything which lays
it down that the returning able-bodied apprentice will be supervised in such a way that the employer will be bound to give him that intensive training which will make him a skilled man in a very short time. I want the right hon. Gentleman to tell us what he has to say on that particular point. I now come to the disabled soldier or sailor himself. I agree with an hon. Gentleman on the other side that there is a scarcity of technical institutions for training those men, but the Committee which considered this matter were in agreement with the hon. Gentleman that the men would be better trained in the workshop than in the technical college. We laid it down, however, that a man should spend the first six months in a technical college and that if he did not prove himself likely to be capable of following the trade selected then the employer should not be burdened with him under any circumstances. There was no intention that the training in an institution should be for a longer period than six months. I want to recommend to the Ministry of Labour this particular scale for his consideration. He is probably aware how by the Marjority banks Committee the scales have been made out. We have been very generous to the man who is disabled and who is going to be intensely trained. After two years in a workshop he gets up to a rate only 1s. 6d. below the standard rate of the district, and at the end of the third year he will be entitled to the full district rate.
I want to point out to the Minister that his draft Bill, or that of his predecessor, when it was issued stultified to some extent the negotiations that were proceeding between representatives of the trade unions and representatives of employers of labour. We had almost induced the employers of labour to allow the returning apprentice to receive the full period of training to complete his apprenticeship, and at the age of twenty-one to be paid journeyman's rate. The employers and ourselves were almost on the point of agreement, and I am not quite sure whether the subsidies now offered constitute a better scheme than that which was likely to be arrived at as the result of those negotiations. However, the scheme came to an end and our arrangements had to be set aside. While it is perfectly true that a man returning after two or three years absence is likely to apply himself
to his trade more diligently than before he went away, in order to make up for some of his lost time, yet there is just a chance that he may be utilised immediately he is twenty-one on some particular job in the workshop, and not be allowed to get that full training to which he is entitled. We are particularly anxious about that. It is all very well to pay full wages, but you are not guaranteeing the man a job for ever, and it may be that if he is discharged six months or a year later, not being fully qualified, he will be regarded by another employer and even by his own trade union as not fully skilled. I trust, whatever else may be done, there will be ensured both to the disabled soldier and sailor and to the apprentice not disabled that intensive training which will make him fully competent to follow his employment.
I want to say one or two things in relation to the difficulties that may crop up, and which are disturbing the minds of many men in trade unions, especially seeing that there are so many unemployed and that so much industrial unrest obtains in the country. We want these men, when they are in the workshop, to have the freedom of the ordinary individual in the workshop, so that if there is a trade dispute they will not be tied down not to co-operate with their fellows. Again, I may say the employers on the committee to which I have referred agreed to that. It would be all very well as between employers of labour and ourselves, providing that the employers are paying the piper. But immediately the State steps in I become suspicious, for when you commence to subsidise the payment of these men, if their wages are partly made up by the subsidies from the State, then if there is a trade dispute likely to occur I want to know if they will be free to leave their work without punishment, along with their fellows, for the purpose of carrying out what they consider to be a right and just claim against the employers. I want the right hon. Gentleman to take that into consideration in so far as his Department is responsible for the payment. Then we would like some sort of assurance, and I candidly admit it is very difficult to give it, that at the end of the three years the employers of labour will pay trade union rates, and that if a man is disabled and is ultimately discharged for one reason or another his new employer shall not take
advantage of his disability, great or small, as the case may be. We are anxious that something should be said or done in relation to that matter.
We are also concerned in the trade union movement as to what is going to occur should there be a slump in trade. Men who have served all their lives in the trade and are qualified to work at it in all its branches are concerned as to what is going to occur to them in the case of industrial depression setting in. Naturally, they imagine that the men brought in under this new scheme would be retained, and that they would be sent out. I do not know how the right hon. Gentleman is going to get over that difficulty. Unfortunately, it is a difficulty which appeals to many men who are concerned about their bread and butter, even while they are willing to be generous and sympathetic to other people. I was pleased to hear the speech of an hon. Member opposite, who is evidently a model employer of labour. When I get into committee meetings or conferences, or even in the House of Commons, I find I am supposed to meet the best employers of labour, but they do not seem to be representative of some whom I meet elsewhere; and, while we are prepared to admit there are many employers of labour who would not take advantage of the disabled soldier or sailor, or of the returning apprentice, we have grave doubts whether there are not many who will be only too ready to exploit these men at the expense of their fellow workmen. I trust we shall have some assurance from the Minister that all these matters will receive attention at his hands. I am sure, if we can get these difficulties moved out of the way, the sympathy and readiness with which we are prepared to do our best for the disabled soldier and sailor will meet with the ready approval of the rank and file in industry.

Mr. R. M'LAREN: The raising of the question of returning apprentices in connection with demobilisation is one of stern necessity, and we should be very glad if the Minister of Labour can formulate a scheme which will settle this difficulty. Surely it should not pass the wit of man to devise a scheme which as between employers, trade union leaders and the men themselves will be sufficiently good to satisfy all the parties most concerned. Every post brings to me letters from fathers of boys in which they say how anxious they are to get their sons home as
soon as possible in order to finish their industrial training, and many of them are perfectly willing not to press for any subsidy to be given so long as the boys can be brought back. Something has been said about the question of technical schools. I happen to know something about these institutions, having myself been a teacher in scientific subjects for many years. I particularly know about those in Scotland, and I was rather surprised to hear it suggested that there was only one good technical school in Scotland, and that was at Edinburgh. I am afraid the hon. Gentleman who made that statement has not visited the technical colleges at Glasgow and other places. Had he done so he would have found them well equipped to do good work in connection with the training of apprentices for various trades. It is true, however, that no amount of training in technical colleges can make up for the training to be had in the workshop. The principal place for such training must always be the workshop, and I am very glad that the schemes which are being framed will ensure that the young men coming back shall receive the principal part of their training eventually in the workshop.
My purpose in rising was to ask the Minister of Labour to take into consideration a class of men who have been hitherto neglected. When the War broke out many men were asked to leave the mines in order to drive tunnels for military operations, and a very large number of boys who were serving their apprenticeship with a view to becoming mining engineers and colliery managers responded to that appeal and were so engaged up till the time hostilities ceased. These men were practically engaged in mining operations all the time, yet they are receiving no consideration whatever at the hands of the authorities now that they have come back. Under the Coal Mines Regulation Act before a young man can become a colliery manager he must have served underground for five years, a certain period being taken off if he takes a degree in a college or university. It seems strange to those who are acquainted with this question that these young men, who left their training and their work and did good, noble work, as miners at the front should, now that they have come back, not have the time in which they have been engaged on this practical work counted towards their service underground for the purpose of getting mining
appointments. I do want to impress on the Committee the fact that they have been engaged in tunnelling and other mining operations all the time, and I cannot see why the authorities should not permit some part of that service to count towards their underground training period for positions as colliery managers. It will mean, unless something is done and unless some of the time is added I to their record, they will be unable to undertake the work of these colliery officials for some years to come. Of course it is necessary men should have a good practical training, but in the interests of the country and in fairness to these young men I do suggest they ought to receive more generous treatment at the hands of the authorities. I hope the Minister, who will have something to do in connection with the demobilisation of these men, will take this matter into serious consideration and allow these boys to have the same chance as others coming home. It will be of advantage to the country to do so. I am very glad that the Minister of Labour himself comes from a mining district, and must know a good deal about the conditions of miners' work. He must know that unless we can get well-trained men, men who know their business thoroughly in connection with both the scientific and the practical side, it is impossible for the mines to be well managed. I, therefore, plead with him to take this matter into his serious consideration and see that these boys, who have done this great work in France, shall have some portion of their military service counted as part of the period they are supposed to spend underground.

Lieutenant-Colonel Sir SAMUEL HOARE: There is one question I should like to put to the Minister before he replies with reference to a branch of the subject not yet touched upon. I refer to the training of men to work on the land. I raise that question, because in the last two or three months I have been interested in several cases of men who were anxious for training to work upon the land. I have approached several Government Departments. I have been in communication with the Ministry of Labour, the Ministry of Pensions, and the War Office, but, so far, I have not succeeded in getting any one of these men trained for work on the land. I should like the Minister to explain to the Committee what is the machinery for dealing with these cases. Supposing, for instance, that
one has the case of a man returned from the front who is anxious to get into the country and work on the land, what is the machinery to deal with him? Has the Ministry of Labour the machinery? If so, what steps do they propose to take? My experience seems to show that these cases are thrown about from one Department to another, and it is almost impossible to get a man of this kind the training he requires. I am pledged as fully as any hon. Member can be pledged to attempt to ensure every facility for the training on the land of returned soldiers who wish to work on the land, and I should very much like information from the Ministry on the subject. Is there any machinery in existence for dealing with such cases; if so, is that machinery already working, and are men already receiving training for work on the land, about which we were talking so much two or three months ago? I hope that the Minister, when he comes to reply, will deal with this question, which is a very urgent and important one.

Sir R. HORNE: In reply to the last speaker I should like to say that I explained the method by which arrangements were being made for those who wish to work on the land in my opening speech. The hon. Member may not have heard it, and, in order that he may be fully aware of the conditions under which such applications are made, I may say briefly that if he has any case in which he is interested where a man desires to work on the land, if he will get his friend to apply to the Appointments Department of the Ministry of Labour his case will be dealt with there. Thereafter, if on consideration his application is considered satisfactory, it will be forwarded to the Board of Agriculture. If the man wants to take up agricultural work in Scotland, the Board of Agriculture in Scotland will deal with the matter; if in England, the Board of Agriculture in England; and if in Ireland, the Board of Agriculture for Ireland. The method thereafter to be followed will be that the appropriate Board of Agriculture will investigate the case, and see if it is a suitable one in which a grant should be made, and determine the amount of the assistance the State ought to
give.
I turn to other matters which have been raised in the course of the discussion. I am very much obliged to the Committee for the very fruitful suggestions which
have been made in the course of the afternoon. We have had some very interesting illustrations from the experience of two employers as to what can be done if zeal and interest are applied to the problem. One hopes that throughout the country we shall find in dealing with the case of the disabled soldier the same sympathy and solicitude shown by others, because undoubtedly if that is so, the problem will be much more easily solved. That attitude, indeed, affords a solution of some of the questions that were put to me. For example, the hon. Member for Newton (Mr. R.Young) asked whether an employer would receive at the end of his apprenticeship as a fully trained man a workman who had been trained under the schemes which the Ministry of Labour was about to inaugurate. Again, it was asked by the hon. Member for East Edinburgh (Mr. Hogge) whether trade unions will receive a disabled soldier who has emerged from a similar training as a fully qualified man. Both of those questions are answered by what the employers and trade unions are willing to do. The endeavour of the Ministry of Labour at the present time is to get the full acquiescence and approval, both of employers and trade unions, to the scheme they have put forward. The hon. Member for Newton has been of very great assistance upon a Committee which has been dealing with this very matter, and I have no doubt we shall still have the great advantage of his experience and assistance. I do not despair at all of getting a scheme upon which all the great employers and all the great trade unions in the country will agree. I find exactly the same note of earnestness in these committees as the hon. Member for Mossley (Mr. A. Hopkinson) has described. I think the ultimate result of what we are attempting to do now will be that we shall get the employers and the trade unions together to foster this scheme in their various works and to carry it through to a successful conclusion.
A question was asked by the hon. Member for East Edinburgh with regard to the period at which apprentices would begin to receive the benefits of the Government's scheme. He made the suggestion that the scheme should be reconsidered to the extent of allowing an apprentice who came home before the natural period of his apprenticeship was concluded to begin at once to obtain the benefits of this system. That suggestion
I am prepared to look upon with every sympathy. Other members of the Committee have dwelt upon it in the same way as the hon. Member for East Edinburgh. I can assure the Committee that I shall take the matter into further consideration and, if it is possible to make this concession, I shall do it with the best will in the world. With regard to supervision, doubts seem to remain in the mind of the hon. Member for Newton as to whether cure will be taken to see that the training the men actually get is of a nature not merely remunerative to the employer at the time, but sufficient to fit the man for skilled work in the future. The same question was asked with regard to the disabled soldier and whether he would be similarly treated. The provisions which are being made by the training section of the Ministry of Labour at the present time provide for such supervision as will ensure, both in the case of the disabled soldier and in the case of the apprentices, that the training is of such a character that it will justify everybody in saying at the end of it that the man has had every opportunity to become a skilled man. The arrangements which are being made will be fruitful to that end. So far as the disabled soldier is concerned, our intention is to train him for six months in a technical school before he begins to take his part in the shop; but with regard to the ordinary apprentices and others, I agree with what the hon. Member for East Renfrew said, that the best training school is the shop, and provided the man is getting the character of training in the shop which is required to make him a thoroughly skilled man, undoubtedly that is the place for him to get it.
The hon. Member for Newton was the only hon. Member who raised a question dealing with the figures in the Vote. His attention was attracted by the fact that the Vote covered a sum of money which was intended to be paid for overtime to certain officials of the Ministry of Labour. All of us have a rooted objection to overtime, if we can avoid it. In this particular case it was only the circumstance that a very heavy burden of responsibility has been put upon the Employment Exchanges, as the Committee can well imagine, in connection with the paying out of unemployment donations that compelled this money to be paid for overtime. I am sorry I am not able to give the hon. Gentleman the
exact rate at which overtime is paid, but I can assure him that the Ministry of Labour will work as little overtime as possible. The hon. Member for Midlothian expressed the wish that the scheme should be brought into operation as rapidly as possible. I can assure the Committee that that is the ardent desire of the Ministry of Labour. The sooner we can get the scheme working, the sooner we shall be pleased. At the present moment the whole matter turns upon getting these agreements between the employers and trade unions which will enable us to set the scheme going. As soon as that is achieved, I can assure the Committee the scheme will be put into operation at the very earliest possible moment. I confess I am glad to have had an opportunity of hearing this discussion before we came to any final conclusion on the scheme, because undoubtedly it has enlightened my mind upon many points, for which I am grateful. One of the matters in the course of the discussion which has given me the greatest possible hope has been the clear evidence that both those who speak on behalf of the employers and those who speak on behalf of the trade unions are seeing as nearly as possible eye-to-eye. I have seen great evidence of this spirit with regard to labour matters in recent times, and, in particular, in the attendance this morning at the new Committee which has been formed out of the Industrial Conference. These symptoms—this coming together of employers and employés—are the most hopeful signs of the present situation. The burden of responsibility which lies upon the Ministry of Labour at the present time is greater than that which lies upon any other Department of State. It is my ardent desire that the Department should do everything possible in order to bring the country through the shoals of its present difficulties into a safe haven.

Mr. NEIL M'LEAN: I wish to ask the Minister of Labour a question or two regarding an incident which happened in the city which he represents together with myself, and which comes under that phrase which he used, that the responsibility of the Ministry of Labour in the bringing together of the workers and the employers in the solution of the labour problem was as great a responsibility as rested upon any other Department of the State. I should like to know why it is that when a
request was made to that Ministry by the Lord Provost of Glasgow to intervene in the labour dispute at the end of January, the responsibility which he speaks of was shelved by his Department instead of taking advantage of the opportunity given by the request of the Lord Provost to send someone down, or at least to make some inquiry into the merits of the dispute at that time raging upon the Clyde. Had the Government, through the Ministry of Labour, taken any steps with regard to that question I feel certain, as one who knows the men concerned in that dispute, that the unfortunate incidents which occurred on 31st January, which led not only to rioting in the city but to the military being sent down, would never have taken place. As a matter of fact, the men were promised through their deputation to have a reply from the Government on the Friday. They assembled in the Square on the Friday as they had assembled on two days before that week—two days upon which the utmost order prevailed, on scenes took place, and tact was displayed by the police and the crowd.

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN (Sir E. Cornwall): The hon. Member must confine his remarks to the question of the payment of demobilised officers and men of His Majesty's Forces.

Mr. M'LEAN: I thought we were on the Industrial Commissioners Department.

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: No; for the moment we are only on the item marked X—payment of demobilised officers and men of His Majesty's Forces.

Mr. M'LEAN: Is there another item upon which I can raise this question at a later period in the Debate?

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: I am afraid this is the last item on the Vote.

Mr. HOGGE: Is not my hon. Friend entitled, no one objecting, to raise this question on the Question being put from the Chair of the £196,456 for all the purposes of this Vote?

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: The practice of the House in Committee on Supplementary Votes is to keep to the supplemental items and also to have regard to the item which is being discussed. We have taken the items from A to X. Hon. Members will not be entitled to discuss the whole question of the policy of the Ministry of Labour.

Mr. HOGGE: It is quite true that it is the practice of the House to confine itself to the special items, but I suggest that when the Minister of Labour has replied on Item 10 that discussion is exhausted, and on the general discussion on the Question which you put from the Chair my hon. Friend is entitled to discuss it.

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: No; I cannot accept that.

Mr. M'LEAN: May I not raise this question on the net total, which embraces all items?

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: No.
Question put, and agreed to.

Orders of the Day — PRIVY SEAL OFFICE.

Motion made, and Question proposed,

"That a sum, not exceeding £1,090, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1919, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Office of the Lord Privy Seal."

Mr. HOGGE: The House is entitled to an explanation. Is it a fact that on this Vote for the Privy Seal we are actually raising the salary of the Leader of the House? I have no objection to the right hon. Gentleman having his Ministerial salary raised to £5,000, but the ordinary remuneration for the office of Privy Seal is only £2,000, and the fact that this Estimate brings up the £2,000, which is the usual emolument of the office of Lord Privy Seal to £5,000, is surely an indication that the Government has some new scheme in prospect with regard to the whole question of Ministerial salaries. In the days of the War, I understand the Treasury Bench pooled their salaries and had all things in common in every way. I do not know what the exact sum was that they pooled, but there was an arrangement of that kind. Now, I understand, the old arrangement again obtains by which each Minister draws the salary attached to his office. The Lord Privy Seal is a sinecure. It is one of the offices which is usually given to some member of the Government whom the Government does not want to do any Departmental work, and who does the bulk of his work on the bench. I never like these proposals coming through in this way. I do not object to any Minister who is the head of any Department getting £5,000. I think he thoroughly deserves it, and he works very hard for his money, although
not nearly so hard as those who only draw the £400, but, on the other hand, there are many Ministers on that bench who do much more work than the Lord Privy Seal. Take one Minister in whom some of us are interested. The Secretary for Scotland is the most overburdened Minister in the Government, because he has twelve separate Departments to look after, and his remuneration is only £2,000. This is a proposal to give a Minister £5,000 for doing nothing but leading the House, whereas, one who does everything outside the House but lead it, gets very much less, and I think the Secretary to the Treasury, before he asks us to agree to this, might say whether this is the precursor of an arrangement which I hope will be made, whereby all these salaries will be equalised and there will not be these anomalies.

Mr. BALDWIN (Joint Financial Secretary to the Treasury): It is quite true that is has been the custom for a good many years to pay the Lord Privy Seal a small salary, although if we go back to the eighteenth century his emoluments were fairly substantial. It is also true that, in accordance with an answer given by the Leader of the House to a question the other day, I understand the whole question of the remuneration of Ministers is being considered, but on this Vote it is simply the salary of the Leader of the House as such that is under consideration. The present Leader of the House held the position of Chancellor of the Exchequer until 13th January this year, and he was appointed Lord Privy Seal on 9thNovember. The salary he has been having as Chancellor of the Exchequer was £5,000 a year, and the salary voted by this House for members of the War Cabinet, who have not, as the modern phrase is, a portfolio, is also £5,000 a year, and it was felt, I think, with the utmost propriety, that that salary was a proper and fitting one to be paid to a Member who holds so highly responsible a position as that of Leader of the House. I am quite sure my hon. Friend recognises, as I do, that heavy and arduous as is the right hon. Gentleman's work in this House, his work outside is no less heavy and arduous.
Question put, and agreed to.

Orders of the Day — ARMY SUPPLEMENTARY ESTIMATES, 1918–19.

Motion made, and Question proposed,

"That a Supplementary sum, not exceeding £10, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the
Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1919, for Pay, etc., of the Army."

Mr. BALDWIN: I must apologise for the absence of the Secretary of State for War, who has been called away to a meeting of the Council, which he was obliged to attend. He has asked me to take charge of this Vote for him. This is one of the purely technical Votes that we have at this tune of the year, and it sanctions the application of Appropriations-in-Aid. There have been presented during the War at this period of the financial year, Votes similar to this each year for the Army and for the Navy, and I have to ask the Committee to sanction these Appropriations in the form in which they appear on the Paper.

Major NEWMAN: I wish to put before the Committee the treatment which the War Office is meting out to certain officers of the Royal Army Ordnance Corps; in other words, to ranker officers, who correspond, of course, to quartermasters or riding masters in the Infantry or Cavalry. They are men who have joined the Army as privates—

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: It is not in order now to discuss the general policy of the War Office. That took place yesterday. This is simply a Supplemental Vote, and the only question which can be discussed is the method of using the Appropriations-in-Aid as mentioned on the Paper.

Major NEWMAN: Shall I be in order in discussing the pay of officers?

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: No.
Question put, and agreed to.

Orders of the Day — NAVY SUPPLEMENTARY ESTIMATES, 1918–19.

Motion made, and Question proposed,

"That a Supplementary sum, not exceeding £10, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1919, for additional Expenditure on the Wages, etc., of Officers, Seamen, Boys, Coastguard, and Royal Marines."

6.0 P.M.

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the ADMIRALTY (Dr. Macnamara): This Navy Supplementary Estimate for 1918–1919 is precisely the same in form, and is rendered necessary for precisely the same reason, as the Army Supplementary Estimate which has just been voted. Nevertheless, I think it due to the Committee to state the application of the pro-
cedure to our case. We are asking for much more than £10. What we are asking for is the right to use Appropriations-in-Aid in excess of those which were put into the Estimate. The Appropriation in the Token Estimate is £100 for each of the seventeen Votes—that is, £1,700. These Votes realised in 1918–1919 £17,000,000, and we are now going to ask for the authority that Parliament alone can give for the retention and use of £17,000,000 over and above the amount of the Estimates. The very wide margin between the amount of Appropriation, £l,700, and the substantive receipts from Appropriation, £17,000,000, is, of course, due to the Token Estimate system. We were bound during the War to adopt the Token Estimate system for the fighting Services. We could not submit to the Committee detailed expenditure in advance which we proposed for the fighting Services, because it would give valuable information to the enemy. Therefore, we took the Token Vote, and one result is this very wide margin between estimated Appropriation Vote and £17,000,000 substantial receipt. From this time onwards the margin will be very much narrower. I think it is due to the Committee, further, to say where we hope to get this£17,000,000 from. We estimate to get it from the following sources: From naval stores and fuel supplied to the Allies about £9,750,000 worth; sale of clothing to men of the Fleet, Coastguard and Reserve, £1,500,000; sale of provisions similarly, about £2,000,000; supplies to other Departments, to Allied Governments, to contractors for making-up, and to the sale of old stores, about £1,000,000; and armaments supplied to other Departments or to Allies, something under £1,000,000; receipts from various sources about £1,500,000 further. We are now asking authority to retain and spend in the financial year £17,000,000, and we bring this to the Committee in pursuance of a Minute which I would like to read. It is a Treasury Minute of 23rd January, 1888. This is the Minute:
When it is proposed to incur a larger gross expenditure than has been provided for in the original Estimate, then any excess of extra receipts over the Estimate may be applied to meet such further expenditure, but the authority of Parliament has to be obtained for the application of the excess receipts just as much as for a further Grant. There has to be presented a Supplemental Estimate, in which, as in the original Estimate, the gross expenditure requiring sanction is shown, and the excess receipts
are abated. If the excess receipts are less than the gross expenditure, the full amount is abated and the balance has to be voted; if the excess receipts are equal to or more than the gross expenditure, so much of them is abated as leaves a nominal sum to be voted, in order that the authority of Parliament may be duly recorded.
In the meantime, under the Appropriation Act, 1918, Section 5, Sub-section (1), we have temporary Treasury sanction to use in this respect as well as in Parliamentary Grants the excess of any Vote to meet the deficiency in any other Naval Vote, and later this year in an Appropriation Bill Parliament will be asked to give final sanction for the transfer which I have already described. I think I have covered the grounds fully.

Sir D. MACLEAN: My right hon. Friend has gone into very much greater detail than his colleague who presented to us the preceding Vote and that therefore justifies me in asking him when we shall be entitled to have laid before us particulars of the various transactions of which he made some mention. It is most important. He spoke about sales of stores and indicated a very wide range of subjects with which this House is very properly and intimately concerned. He mentioned that in the course of the discussion on the Appropriation Bill this might be dealt with. He knows as well as I do that on the Debates on the Appropriation Bill they are in no sense of that close and particular kind which examination of the Committee ought to be directed to, though I quite agree our attention is not so often directed to particular items as it might with advantage be. I want to know, and I am sure he will be able to tell me, when the Committee may expect to have laid before them particulars of the various heads to which he alluded and others which no doubt are in his mind?

Sir C. KINLOCH-COOKE: I wish to join in the question of my right hon. Friend opposite. This, I take it, is only a Token Vote. The expenditure of £17,000,000 covers a very large number of different items connected with the expenditure on the Navy. As my right hon. Friend said, we should like to know something more of the particulars, and we should like to know when we shall have an opportunity of discussing this question. Further, I should like to know when these items will come before the Public Accounts Committee. I venture to think, in view of the very large expenditure that has been incurred during the War, and which I feel
sure my right hon. Friend will see at once, that there is something in what my right hon. Friend opposite asks and, perhaps, he will now kindly give us particulars?

Sir THOMAS BRAMSDON: I want to ask a question, of my right hon. Friend, which I think he will readily answer. I put this question down a few days ago to the First Lord of the Admiralty. I asked him if he could let us know when the Jerram Committee's Report will be made, so that we will be able to discuss it on the Navy Votes. The First Lord said he was unable to say; they were proceeding with all dispatch, but it would not be possible to have the Report of the Jerram Committee before the Naval Vote was taken this year. This is a very important question for officers and men of the Royal Navy. They would like to know something more of that Vote and the results of it. I should like my right hon. Friend to say—

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN (Sir E. Cornwall): Order, order! The discussion is on the Estimates, and not on this.

Sir T. BRAMSDON: I appreciate that, Sir.

Dr. MACNAMARA: I can only say that the main Navy Estimates will be taken probably next week. Now I come to the question raised by my right hon. Friend opposite me and another hon. Member as to what opportunity Parliament will have for following the appropriation to their proper purpose in all these moneys, these and other moneys in the Estimates. I merely referred to the Act of 1918, Section 5, as giving temporary sanction for the use of the money. I said in another Bill this Session that temporary sanction would come up for final Parliamentary sanction. This 1918–1919 Account, which would include the use of the £17,000,000, together with many more millions will be complete on 31st March. The Departmental officers will prepare the Appropriation Account or Accounts during the fall of the present year; they will hand that Appropriation Account then to the Comptroller and Auditor-General; he will examine it in the light of the reports of his officers—between fifty and sixty of whom are in our offices now and are checking expenditure—he will examine it and report to the House of Commons early in 1920. The House of Commons will then appoint as Public Accounts Committee. That Committee will take the report of the Comptroller and Auditor-General on
the Appropriation Account of 1918–19 and examine it, calling witnesses as may be necessary, making a Report to the House of Commons during the course of the Session of 1920 and thereafter the House will be in a position to say whether or not it desires to have a Debate on the Report. The Public Accounts Committee on the Report of the Comptroller and Auditor-General on the expenditure of 1918–1919, that is the further check, a post-mortem check if you like, which the House of Commons will have.

Sir D. MACLEAN: Do I understand from my right hon. Friend that the only opportunity this House will have of discussing the policy which lies behind these very large transactions will be, as he very justly terms, a post-mortem check in 1920, it now being February, 1919. Is that so?

Dr. MACNAMARA: My right hon. Friend speaks as if he had made a great discovery. He knows what I am saying is absolutely in accord with Parliamentary procedure to which he has been a party for a considerable number of years.

Sir D. MACLEAN: Perhaps my right hon. Friend will answer one other point. Can he tell us from his very wide and accurate knowledge of the Navy spending departments—nobody has a better grasp of it in the House of Commons, that I know from many years experience of his work—can he tell us is there any real chance within the next seven or eight months of us getting rid of this intolerable system of Token Vote?

Dr. MACNAMARA: We shall submit as the War Office did yesterday for 1919–20 a Vote on Account. We shall submit for the information of the House as near as we can get to a provisional sketch of the course Naval expenditure will take in that Session, and we shall give to the House an undertaking to come to the House with the old pre-war detailed Estimate for 1919–1920 as they were in 1914–15. As soon as we can, say, in July, and I admit April, May and June and perhaps July, may have gone, this will be an Estimate in advance so far as the next eight months are concerned. You will get an examination by the House and Committee of the Estimates before the expenditure takes place.
Question put, and agreed to.
Resolutions to be reported To-morrow; Committee to sit again To-morrow.

Orders of the Day — CIVIL CONTINGENCIES FUND BILL.

Order for Second Reading read.

Mr. BALDWIN: I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a second time."
Before the introduction of this Bill it was necessary to bring before the House a Financial Resolution, upon which I was enabled to say something in explanation about the nature of this Bill, but hon. Members now have the Bill before them, and it might be desirable to add a little to what I said on the occasion of the Financial Resolution. The Civil Contingencies Fund itself, as Members know, is a comparatively small fund. It has continued its existence from year to year, to provide capital from which the Government may draw in anticipation of sums that are required, and such drawings made in advance are repaid mostly within the financial year in which they are drawn out. The procedure is familiar to old Members of the House. The Civil Contingencies Fund Accounts are examined by the Comptroller and Auditor-General and reported in detail, and are also examined by the Public Accounts Committee in each year. From the year 1861, when the fund was first established, the amount of capital stood at £120,000 for many years, and this amount was raised to £300,000 as recently as 1913, the year before the War.
The reason we have introduced this Bill asking the House to consent to enlarge to a considerable extent the Civil Contingencies Fund for twelve months is as follows: We have done away with Votes of Credit and have endeavoured as far as possible to present full Estimates to Parliament. We shall not be as successful in this effort during the forthcoming year as we should have liked, because it is still impossible for many Departments to estimate with pre-war accuracy what the requirements of their Departments may be. But there are two large Departments in particular for which we shall present practically Token Votes—and I dislike Token Votes as much as my right hon. Friend opposite—those are the Ministry of Munitions and the Ministry of Shipping. The reason is that in each of those Departments there will be in the course of the ensuing twelve months very large Appropriations-in-Aid, and the amount of these Appropriations will go a long way towards supplying the funds for payment on the other side of the balance-sheet. But we have got to remember two things: first,
it is quite impossible to for see with certainty what the amount of these Appropriations will be in the course of a year, and, secondly, it will probably be late in the financial year before the Appropriations-in-Aid are received. Therefore a method has to be devised for financing these Departments, in the absence of the Votes of Credit from which they have been financed from the early days of the War until the time when we have dispensed with Votes of Credit.
The means which we have devised is by so enlarging for twelve months the Civil Contingencies Fund that we believe we can get from it all we shall require for this interim finance in the same way that the Vote of Credit was used to supply it from time to time if and when that capital was required for the payment of such services, as I enumerated when I addressed the Committee on the Financial Resolution. I would refer hon. Members to the first and the only operative Clause in the Bill now before us. We seek to provide working capital for the purpose of exchange operations. Then we enumerate the undertakings which would have to be financed, and we use these protecting words, "on account of exigencies arising out of the present War." That guards us to this extent, that no undertaking of such kinds as are described can be entered into except those which arise out of the present War, and then we go on to provide funds for making advances to respective urgent services in respect of provision made or to be made by Parliament. The kind of things that may arise are such as the following: Take the Government programme for housing. Full opportunity for criticism of the Government proposals will naturally arise on the introduction of the Housing Bill. It may be that large quantities of the raw materials for housing—bricks, for example—will require to be paid for before a covering Estimate has passed this House. I do not say that this will happen, but it represents a contingency that may happen, and therefore ought to be provided against, and we seek to provide against it by this Bill.
We subject ourselves, as Members will notice in this Bill, to very substantial restrictions. No issues can be made from the Consolidated Fund after the close of the financial year—that is the 31st of March next year—and every issue made must be repaid not later than the 30th of September, 1920. That does not mean for a moment that large sums will be wanted
or may be wanted, and we hope that the bulk of the advances which may be made will be repaid by the end of the financial year. We hope that what are known as the Trading Accounts may be wound up by that date. But we have put the date for these ultimate repayments at September, 1920, so as to allow for the possibility of sums having to be advanced to the end of the financial year, when a margin of time will be necessary before repayment may be made. Then provision is made for the presentation to Parliament of minutes setting forth the purpose for which working capital is required to be advanced from the Civil Contingencies Fund, together with the amount of the advance in each case.
I would remind the House, if I may, that Parliament retains full power to criticise the actions of the Ministers who are responsible for the conduct of these various trading operations, when the Estimates are brought before the House for the salaries of those Ministers and their staffs—in the case, for instance, of Ministries such as the Food Ministry and the Board of Trade, or of the Sugar Commission, whose staff appears under the heading of "Temporary Commissions." Then I would remind the House of one further point. There has been, and rightly been, during the War a very great desire to know what are the results of these trading accounts. But all I have to tell the House to-day is that these accounts are being audited in almost—indeed, I believe in all cases—by professional accountants of high standing, that the accounts when completed and wound up will be examined by the Comptroller and Auditor-General, and reported by him in the ordinary way, and that they will be published in due course, when everybody will be able to see the result of the working. I will only add that the moneys alluded to in this Bill do not add one farthing to the Estimates or expenses of the country. They merely provide a convenient form of bank account for which the necessity has arisen in the absence of the Votes of Credit, during this intermediate year, between the time of war and the time when we shall be able once more to have all the Estimates on a peace basis. This is a piece of emergency ad hoclegislation. We cannot do without it, and though I welcome an examination of the Bill and its details in the Committee, I am quite sure that such examination will con-
vince the House that I am making no undue request in the circumstances of the moment in asking them to pass this Bill.

Sir D. MACLEAN: The introduction of this Bill is in compliance with an undertaking by the Leader of the House to me last Friday week in the Debate which arose on the consideration of the Financial-Resolution. On that occasion I asked my right hon. Friend whether the Bill would be drawn in such a way as to permit us to have a wide opportunity or raising the question of Government trading, and the reply of the Leader of the House was that every one of these subjects could be discussed at length. As far as I am able to understand the Bill it is open to us, subject, of course, to your discretion in the matter, to ask the Government what they have done with their existing powers. First, let me say that I welcome this Bill, because as far as I can understand it is the first step towards bringing back some of the old Treasury control over the spending Departments. In Sub-section (2) of Clause1it is provided that Minutes will be laid from time to time before Parliament specifying the purposes for which the working capital has been provided, and the amount advanced in each case. My hon. Friend in charge of the measure has told us rather by way of gently warning us off the ground if I may put it that way, as to particularity, which I have no doubt he rather shrinks from because he cannot possibly be expected to answer in detail for all these vast range of subjects which come within the scope of the Bill, that we shall have the opportunity in Committee on the Estimates. We know very well what that means. The very subject in which hon. Members will probably be most keenly interested, say, meat or wheat, or tea, will probably be buried away and it will be quite impossible to disentangle it from the mass of other subjects which are brought up. Or again, the whole question may be swept away on some discussion of policy which leaves the Committee unable to tackle the urgency of the particular problem. Therefore I hope my hon. Friend will not be too much discouraged if I suggest to him that in all probability he will hear from Members who wish to take part in the Debate of a pretty wide range of inquiry, and perhaps some fertility of comment on this very interesting question of Government trading.
Let me just deal with three or four points. I see that the first thing working capital is required for is for the purpose
of exchange operations. I should like to know what that really means. Let me put this case to him. We are no doubt making very large advances at the present time, and are likely to make them for a considerably longer time, say, to France or to Italy. I do not know what the exchange quotation is, but I am sure I am not very far out when I say this, that if you get down to the reality of the value of the franc it would not be much more than 5d. and our advances in the. present and the future to Italy would probably be not worth more than 3d. or 4d. Let me ask my hon. Friend this question: If we are advancing to France on the pre-war value of the franc, and to Italy on the pre-war value of the lira; in fact the values now of those two denominations are not the l0d. of the franc and the value of the lira, but somewhere about 5d. and at 3d. or 4d.I suggest, therefore, that what is happening is that they are getting our goods at half price, and I want to know from him whether this large sum is going to meet that deficiency. Since we borrow money from our own people on the gold standard we have got to pay 20s. in the £1, while we are in fact advancing these huge sums to our Allies—

Mr. BALDWIN: No question of any advances to our Allies comes up on this Bill. There is no question of making advances or loans or any financial transactions. This is purely an advance for repayment within twelve months.

Sir D. MACLEAN: I am glad of that explanation, but I was entitled to make the comment since reference is made in the Bill to transactions "on account of exigencies arising out of the present war." I am pleased, however, to hear that as far as the scope of this Bill is concerned such matters are outside of it, but the general comment I have made is one of very serious consideration indeed. Let me say a word or two on the question of what I may call the wheat business of the Government. Mr. Runciman, formerly a Member of this House—and I think everybody interested in the trade of the country will regret that he is not here with us to apply his long experience and his very clear mind to the extraordinary problems which lie before us—in a letter to the "Times" the other day brought out some very interesting
facts. He there indicated that while we buy wheat from the Argentine at somewhere about 94s. for 480 lbs., it is retailed to our own millers here at 81s. for 480 lbs., and that if free imports were allowed, or if somewhere near free imports could be arranged, the price would be somewhere about 62s. That is a very important statement which has not been seriously challenged. The answer which was given, in so far as it was an answer, was that it is impossible at present, owing to tonnage, and so on, to have the freedom which would reduce the price to somewhere about the figure which Mr. Runciman gives. But there was a very enlightening comment made by the Minister in charge of food control, and it was this, that practically all the British mills, and Irish mills also, are under Government control, and that every one of them is run at a loss. That loss is made up by the Treasury by a payment each month, and there is an annual balance arrived at, and the loss on the trading to those millers is made up to the pre-war standard. What prospects, I ask my hon. Friend, are there of that Government, I hardly call it trading, of that control being abolished, because I see that the Minister in charge of the Food Department said this:
It is possible prices can be brought down shortly to some extent, and the Royal Commission on Wheat Supplies, who have had the matter under constant consideration, have already announced they are revising their selling prices and will make a definite statement on or before 3rd March.
I may have missed it, but I have not seen any public notice of any revision or any change of policy which has come from the Wheat Commission. The whole subject of this and of the wheat subsidy is exciting the closest attention and the greatest anxiety throughout the country, and I do hope that, even in the absence of the Minister of Food, we shall have some answer on the general question—I know I cannot press for details, for obvious reasons—in order to allay the great public anxiety and commercial unrest and uncertainty, and to know whether we can be assured that there will be a change towards freedom of dealing in this vital necessity of the nation's existence. There is one other interesting matter to which I must make allusion, and that was a letter from a Mr. Toovey, a member of the council of the National Association of British and Irish Millers, to the "Times." I am sure he would not make a statement
of the kind contained in his letter unless he was absolutely certain of the facts. This is what he says:
The Government not only compel the trade to buy maize at nearly double its economic value, but they also refuse to sell it at all unless the buyer takes 10 per cent. of foreign beans of very doubtful value. Until lately the amount was 20 per cent. The beans are charged at the price of £35 per ton as compared with English beans at £25 per ton.
He goes on to describe this and I naturally use his words, and I do not in any sense implement them myself:
This blackmailing policy is as futile as it is improper and disreputable.
He goes on to say that the beans would be quite unsaleable at the price charged,
especially as we are warned that they are not to be fed to horses by the Government themselves.
The beans depreciate every week they are in stock, and the losses would have to be borne by a Department of the Ministry of Food. Is that or is it not true? If it is true, is that a defensible method of doing business, if one can dignify it by that name? Has that method come to an end, and, if not, when is it going to come to an end? A word about the meat question. I do not know what the amounts are, but there is not the slightest doubt that there are huge stocks of foreign meat in cold storage in this country. I believe that the price has been reduced about 2d. per pound during the last day or two. I would point out to the House that the average price for this foreign meat before the War was 6d. per pound, and a few days ago it was 1s. 5½d., and even with the reduction which has taken place it is still about 225 per cent. higher than the pre-war price. The storage and distribution of that meat is costing the Government about 2d. per pound, while before the War the cost was three-eighths of a penny to the private trader. What we want to know is what stocks do the Government hold, when are they going to get rid of them, and when are the people of this country going to have the benefit of these large purchases which have been made by the Government, and which are being uselessly held up against the public at the present time? I leave that query where it stands. Can my hon. Friend tell us what is happening with regard to tea? I understand that tea can still be bought abroad at less than control price in this country. I could give a lot of further particulars, but I do not wish to weary the House, and I would
like the hon. Gentleman to tell us what is happening in regard to that matter. The position may have slightly improved, but why should it be so slowly and so slightly? If there is one thing clearer than another it is the united chorus of complaint and disapproval from the whole business community, test it where you like. In the City of London and right through every exchange in the land the same cry goes up, "It is time the Government control was, if not swept away at a stroke, considerably lessened, and that business men once more should have the chance of doing the nation's business."
What must be the case, after all? Hostilities came to an end unexpectedly. The Government through all its various agencies was doing what it was not only entitled to do, but it was rightly doing it, and that was making purchases the world over in a general sense and in this country in particular, and budgeting for at least another twelve months of war. When the Armistice was declared there must have been very large stocks held by the Government, in this country and abroad, of wheat, and meat, and tea, and the whole range of the staple foods of the country. Not only that, but there must have been large stocks of wool, of leather, and of all the things that go to make up the needs of an army. In these days the needs of an army are just the needs of a nation—food, clothing, material, and so on—and so there must have been then at the disposal of the Government huge stocks, or, if they had not got the stocks, they must have had commitments or orders under which the various materials and food were being collected, so that at call they could have been got for the nation's needs in war. In addition to that, there has been an immense amount of tonnage released, and it is no use telling us that the answer to that is that we are still being kept on a war footing in regard to tonnage, because everybody must know that the War effort at sea must have slowed down even to a much greater degree than the War effort on land, and the whole vast system of what I might call the auxiliary force is no longer used for naval and military purposes at all, and is and ought to be available for the nation's trade. In addition to that, a very large number of men have been demobilised, and there is a large amount of unemployment in the country. You have got the manufacturers and traders all
round crying for men, and you have got men hanging about who cannot get a job. There the fact is, and it is nearly four months since hostilities ceased, and still, turn where you like through the whole range of our business activities in this land, from the huge trading corporations down to the smallest grocer in the tiniest village, the same complaint is arising. I suggest, therefore, that the time has come for the Government to make, not a sort of pinprick effort at all, but that it is time for a big co-ordinating policy to grasp the whole thing. It is not my business to suggest how it is to be done, but I know it can be done. This nation found itself unprepared for anything like the War on a grand scale which we had to face in 1914, and it co-ordinated its efforts then in such a manner as to be the astonishment of the world. If this nation is called upon again to co-ordinate its effort for a serious effort in peace to restore trade it will do it, but it cannot do it now, simply because of the vested interests of these scores of Government Departments—bureaucracy camped out in embattled form on every field of our national life. That is where the trouble is, and there is no central executive with sufficient pluck and power to grasp the thing, and, until there is that driving power put into it, this thing will get worse and worse. There is no more potent cause of the industrial unrest around us to-day than the high prices and difficulties of trade. Sweep all the business, say they, into the great shops, but the nation, when it really comes to it, feeds itself from the little shops. They are there, and they are feeling more than anybody else the pinch of Government control and the inaccessibility of supplies. What we want to do, and I urge that most strongly again on the Government in the interests of our financial future, and in the interests of the pacification of the industrial unrest, is not to let this thing be trifled with any longer. It can be settled by a united effort on commonsense business lines.

Sir J. D. REES: Will my hon. Friend kindly explain what is meant in the operative Clause of the Bill by providing that the Treasury may issue out of the Consolidated Fund sums to the Civil Contingencies Fund for the manufacture of food and other commodities. I do not understand whether that really portends, as might be inferred from the actual language, any
manufacturing activities on the part of the Government, and I cannot believe that the Government contemplates manufacturing food or other commodities.

Sir D. MACLEAN: They are actually manufacturing building materials now—bricks, and woodwork of every description.

Sir J. D. REES: I do not believe that any further extension in that direction is contemplated, and, being one of those who disbelieve in Government efforts of this sort, I beg to ask my hon. Friend to explain what is meant by those words which come in the very forefront of the operative Clause of the Bill. I should like to be informed, also, what is the particular object of continuing the control of tea. I confess I do not know. I do not attribute it, like my right hon. Friend, to any desire on the part of the Departments, having got control of tea, to continue that, control. At the same time, stocks of tea are very ample in the country, there is plenty of tea being grown, and I think, so far as I know, there is no great obstacle to bringing home what is required for replenishing stocks as they are exhausted. If I am right in that, I do not myself know what is the object of continuing the control of tea, because it is not as if that led to the distribution of the leaf at a lower price than that at which it would ordinarily be obtainable, but it actually raises the price as against the consumer. If that is so, I do not know what is the object of retaining the control of tea. I reject the hypothesis of my right hon. Friend, but I do ask the hon. Gentleman in charge of the Bill if he will explain that to me, as well as give me some comfort and some assurance that this Bill does not mean that the Government is about to embark further in the manufacture, purchase, and sale of food and other commodities.

Mr. CAUTLEY: I beg to move, to leave out the word "now" and at the end of the Question to add the words, "upon this day six months."
7.0 P.M.
This Bill provides for handing over to the hon. Gentleman £120,000,000 of money for the purpose of trading and speculating, and amongst other purposes I find it is to provide working capital for undertakings for the purchase and sale of food, and in that is included the purchase of foreign wheat. Many people take the view that the sooner the Government cease trading and speculating the better it will be, in
whatever commodity, but for my part I will be no party to voting money for the Government to buy more foreign goods until I receive assurance from them that the interests of the home grower of wheat will not be prejudiced, and that the obligations already incurred by the Government to the home growers, not only of wheat but also of potatoes, are fulfilled. We have had some experience in the past of Government trading in wheat. They have bought very large quantities, and, not being able to ship them here during the course of the War, they used every effort of every Government Department, both by inducement and compulsion, to get wheat grown in this country. Agricultural committees have been set up, farmers all over Great Britain have been ordered and made to plough up and to grow wheat on most unsuitable land, and when the time comes for realising the wheat that has been grown, we have the spectacle that is going on now of the Government flooding the market and filling up the millers with the foreign wheat they have bought, so that the English wheat which the English farmers in various parts of the country, in times of great stress, were compelled to grow is unable to be sold, or at any rate is unable to command within some shillings a quarter of what is the controlled price. The House will remember that although the Government bought foreign wheat up to 107s. or 108s. a quarter from America, they controlled the price to the English farmer to what is now 76s., but they took care to say that he should not obtain a larger sum per quarter than 76s.;and they also took good care to avoid providing any means for securing to him a market for the wheat which he had grown. There is a moral obligation on the Government, who by these means I have already pointed out have compelled the English farmers to grow wheat at an enormous expense to themselves on this most unlikely land in numerous cases, to see that they got at any rate the present control price of 76s. Yet, when I asked a question yesterday as to what steps the Government meant to take to accomplish this end, I got a negative reply both from the Food Controller and the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Agriculture, on whom we, as farmers, have some right to rely as taking charge of our interests. That being the experience that we have had in the past, have we any better hopes for the future? If this Bill
is allowed to go through, can we trust the hon. Gentleman in charge of it with the power of buying wheat in these enormous quantities from abroad as he has done in the past? As the Committee is aware, the only guarantee of price that the English farmer possesses is under the Corn Production Act. The producers of corn in this country are under control. Parliament has interfered—and I think rightly interfered—and has set up Wages Boards to fix wages, and in the last Parliament we secured a better standard of living and a better wage for the agricultural labourer. But, in return for this, a benefit was thought to have been conferred on the corn grower in guaranteeing him a certain price fixed under the Corn Production Act. Now, the price for the year 1920, and that is what I am most concerned with at the present moment, is 45s. a quarter. In addition to the increase of wages, which are tending upwards and are likely to increase over and above the minimum that has recently been fixed, every other commodity, implement or article that a farmer has to buy has increased from 100 to 300 per cent. Nobody knows better, or should know better, because I am sure the Parliamentary Secretary has a lot to learn about agriculture or agriculturists, nobody should know better than he that growing wheat under present conditions, at 45s. a quarter, means bankruptcy for the man who proposes to do it in this country.
I have insisted, as far as I as a private Member can do it in this House, and every Member and the townsmen particularly should realise it, that after the passing of the Corn Production Act agriculture in this country has become a subsidised industry, and that subsidy has to be kept on if the corn lands are to be kept cropped and used for the purpose of growing wheat. For the 1920 wheat preparation has to be made almost now, or within a few weeks. The farmer who is going to sow wheat in autumn has to fallow his ground, and prepare and plough it many times over to get it clean and free from weeds and fit to grow wheat. He has to make up his mind now, and until we can get some declaration of policy from the Government as to what their view is with regard to what is to be done to revise this price of 45s., fixed under the Corn Production Act for 1920, I for one will not vote for entrusting the Hon. Gentleman opposite with £120,000,000 to be used for the purposes of bringing corn and wheat
in large quantities to this country. If he likes to tell us now that the policy of the Government is to flood the country with foreign wheat, and that we are to depend in future, as we have in the past, on getting all our bread from abroad we, as agriculturists, will then know somewhat where we are. The result of so doing will be that all this land, which has been ploughed up and made into wheat-growing land at so much expense, will go back, and that three-quarters of the old land which is growing wheat will also go back to grass land, and the number of men employed on the land will diminish to one-half of what it is at the present time. If, on the other hand, the policy of the Government is—and I think it must be, and so far as I have any influence over Members of the House it will be—that wheat growing is still to be continued in this country, we must have some definite statement now as to what the farmer, who puts his money and his brains into producing wheat in this country, has a reasonable ground to expect when he comes to sell it at the end of 1920. We must have some statement of that policy, instead of the jejune answer that I got from the Parliamentary Secretary only yesterday, when I pointed out to him the immediate necessity of everyone interested in this industry knowing where they stood and were likely to stand as they had to make their plans now. I got the bare reply, "Oh, you can grow wheat at 45s. that is all the Government is going to do for you." That showed a want of sympathy from the Board of Agriculture, and we ought to have been able to expect more than that from them. It also showed a want of realisation by the present Government of the position of the most urgent need of agriculture at the present moment. Because I tell the Government, both the hon. Gentlemen in charge of the Bill and the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Agriculture, that the price fixed for wheat in this country is really the basis on which the agricultural labourers' wages have fixed by the Wages Board. It is not for the farmer that I am speaking so much as for the men. Both stand in the same boat under the Corn Production Act, and growing wheat at 45s. under present conditions and prices means bankruptcy for the farmer and the farm labourer; and the workers cannot be employed nor the wages fixed possibly kept up. Until we have this assurance I shall persist; and I will make the Motion which stands on
the Order Paper in my name, "That the Bill be read a second time six months hence," and we will not give the hon. Gentleman the money to speculate in wheat in the way he does now.

Captain FITZROY: I beg to second the Amendment.
So far as I can understand this Bill—and I must say it is rather obscure—it is a measure providing the Government with capital for the purposes of exchange operations and undertakings for the manufacture, purchase, and sale of food and other commodities. Obviously, under these conditions which are made in this Bill, the widest possible scope is given to the Government to speculate in all products, and I entirely agree with the right hon. Gentleman who spoke from the Front Opposition Bench (Sir D. Maclean) that the anxiety of the public and the anxiety of all industries is very great indeed with regard to the methods which the Government employ in this kind of speculation. The right hon. Gentleman referred to industrial concerns all over the country, but I do not know that he referred to the agricultural industry. I can assure the hon. Gentleman who introduced this Bill that the greatest anxiety of all will be in the minds of the members of the agricultural community, when they see what provisions this Bill allows to the Government. I should be ashamed to face my Constituents were I to go clown and tell them that I voted for a Bill which gave the widest possible permission to the Government to speculate in foreign corn, and by that means to assist agriculture in other countries, whereas I never can get out of the Government, by any means whatever, what is their agricultural policy at the present time. I remember that during the War most of the trouble that arose in this country among the workers and in different industries was because the Government refused to take the public into their confidence and to tell them quite plainly, and in straightforward, understandable language, what their policy was and why they had pursued that policy. The hon. Gentleman who spoke last asked the Government yesterday a question as to what policy they were going to pursue with regard to agriculture in this country. He got an answer which was entirely unsatisfactory and one which, if it is the set policy of the Government, must tend to bring back agriculture to what it was before the War. I am quite certain that
no member of this Committee is anxious that that should come about. I am quite sure of that, and least of all the industrial population and the livers in the towns. But it is because the Government refuse to tell us what their policy is, and because these industrial populations are ignorant on agricultural questions—and I am not blaming them for it—that they complain when prices go up and their food becomes dearer. We are asked, under this Bill, to give permission to the Government to pay large sums to foreign countries for corn. It is quite obvious, therefore, that their policy is quite distinct as to what they are going to do in that direction. Why cannot they tell us what their policy is with regard to agricultural questions, and put us out of our misery? I do not want in any way to obstruct the Government or to vote against them at this early stage of their career, but if they will persist in keeping us in the dark, and in keeping agriculturists and the country in anxiety as to what is to be their policy within the next few years, I must support the hon. Gentleman in the Amendment.

Sir EDGAR JONES: I think the House has cause to complain of the form in which this very large sum of money has been brought before it. In the past, when a Vote of Credit has been brought in, very considerable notice was given. There was considerable publicity both for the country and for Members of this House, and, as a general rule, during the War, when a Vote of Credit has been brought forward, the Prime Minister himself has on almost every occasion taken the trouble to come down to the House and we were prepared for an explanation as to what the money was for. We were given very elaborate statements as to the situation of the country, and satisfaction was given to Members in general as to how matters were proceeding. Here, today, covered up under quite an innocent form of Bill, that in previous years amounted to about £120,000, we have a demand for £120,000,000, and if it had not been for the right hon. Gentleman opposite, about an hour ago, the whole thing would probably have slipped through in a very small House, without any discussion at all. I do not complain of the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, but his explanation of what is involved in this Bill has been very sketchy and very inadequate. The whole question of industrial unrest is largely wrapped up in this Bill. So long as the Government
blocks business, so long will this unrest get more acute, because this is not only unrest in the factory and mine and on the railway, but it is unrest in every cottage and at every street corner in this country, and I think the very pertinent points put by the right hon. Gentleman opposite must be answered, because the Government must realise that their statements, issued recently, trying to explain that their control is beneficial, have not been believed by the bulk of the people of this country. They have not been satisfactory.
I have endeavoured, to the best of my ability, to read the defence as to prices of meat and wheat and the control of various articles, but let me add one fact that I have been able to verify. At the present moment, the poor housewife of this country is warned that, because the Government will insist on handling sugar itself, and keep people who know the business off it, she will get no sugar this coming summer for making jam and so forth. At the same time, during this very week, America is selling in this country hundreds of tons of finished sugar goods at a price lower than the price at which sugar is sold to the housewife in this country. When people get up against things like that, they really feel there is something wrong somewhere, and it is high time the Government should give the country a very detailed and exhaustive opportunity for full discussion. I trust we shall have an opportunity where we can come down prepared for a discussion, and not come down, as to-day, to meet a very surprising kind of Bill.
But the particular point I wanted to raise was the very amazing statement made by the Financial Secretary as to a new feature of this Bill. My hon. Friend here called attention to the very extraordinary word "manufacture." The Financial Secretary says that out of this £120,000,000 there is to be a considerable sum of money advanced to the Ministry of Munitions for manufacturing bricks. Really, if this is so, it is the most extraordinary thing I have ever heard of or seen in this House for a long time.

Mr. BALDWIN: I must correct my hon. Friend. I never said anything would be advanced to the Ministry of Munitions for manufacturing bricks or anything else. I said it might be possible, before the Estimate was passed, that we might include provision for these raw materials for housing which would be submitted to the
House later, and that it might be necessary to make payment for some of the raw materials used in housing, such as bricks.

Sir E. JONES: It is the same point; it makes no material difference. The substantial point is this: We are informed—and it is involved in some technical way in this Bill—that the Ministry of Munitions is going to purchase bricks for the housing policy of the country. The Ministry of Munitions is going to continue trading in bricks and materials for housing. Really, I thought the other day we were distinctly informed by the Government that they had put a new Minister of Supply in to wind up the Ministry of Munitions. I can quite understand the time when the Ministry of Munitions had to take over the brickworks of this country in order to produce bricks in a hurry for the erection of aerodromes, national factories, and things of that character, but to keep up a special section of the Ministry of Munitions, which we want to see removed as soon as possible, in order that the Government may try a new experiment in bad trading and keep up prices for the new housing problem, alarms me very much indeed. We want this cleared up. It is not enough to tell us that some day between this and the end of the Session, if you let this £120,000,000 go through, you may have the chance, on the salary of the Minister, to ask him about all these things. We ought to have had considerably more explanation about this matter, and I believe that for the Government to become a general provider and trader for building houses in localities under various local authorities and societies, is a very serious matter, and the House should hesitate before parting with the Bill until it gets some assurance on that point.

Major O'NEILL: I had no intention of intervening in this Debate, but for the point raised by my hon. Friend opposite. I represent a constituency in Ireland which is largely agricultural, and I feel that, as this question of prices for agricultural products has been raised, it is only right that some voice from Ireland should say a word upon it. Constantly, lately, I have been approached by my Constituents upon this question. Farmers in Ireland, as in England, feel that it is impossible for them to embark upon any agricultural commitments until they know once and for all, and as soon as possible, what is the policy of the Government in this matter. During
the War we were told of the great necessity for increasing the food of the country, and a very good response to that appeal was made by farmers throughout the whole of the United Kingdom; for whatever may have been the response in Ireland as regards men, I think there is no question that as regards food it was a very fine one indeed. I think I am right in saying that there was a greater proportional increase in food production in Ireland than in any other part of the United Kingdom. The other day I approached the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Agriculture on this point, and he referred me to his speech on the Address, where he said that the maximum prices of cereals for 1918 would be the minimum prices for the 1919 crop. I sent the extract from his speech back to the constituents who had approached me on the matter, and I pointed out to them that that was what was the policy of the Government, but they were not satisfied with that. The farmers said, "We cannot embark upon our sowing for 1919 on a vague statement that the maximum prices for last year will be the minimum prices for this year. We want to know here and now what the prices are going to be." I had a question put down to the hon. Gentleman on this point for to-morrow, but as this subject has been raised in this Debate, I do hope, in order to satisfy the agricultural community at large, that we shall at least be able to get from the hon. Gentleman a statement which will enable the farmers to do what they are only too anxious to do if they get fair treatment, and that is to keep up the food supply of the country upon the basis upon which it should be kept up.

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD Of AGRICULTURE (Sir Arthur Boscawen): I cannot, of course, reply to many of the points that have been raised in this Debate, but only to those questions which have been raised by my hon. Friend opposite the Member for Sussex (Mr. Cautley), find by the last speaker and my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Northampton (Captain Fitzroy). With reference to the question of food prices generally, of course a reply will have to be sought elsewhere, and similarly upon the general policy of the Bill. But I do want to say one or two words in answer to—I will not say the attack, but the criticisms that have been made on the Board of Agriculture by my
hon. Friends. I do think it is rather hard that we should be accused of want of sympathy, for we certainly are not unsympathetic. We recognise to the full what the farmers did during the War. We realise the great sacrifices made. When we wanted the food, the farmers were appealed to, and we got the food. We also realise that the food production at home is not merely an agricultural question but is a great National question, which cannot be dealt with by the Board of Agriculture only. Why am I accused of being unsympathetic? Yesterday my hon. Friend opposite (Mr. Cautley) asked me a question as to what would be the guaranteed price for wheat for the crop of 1920.

Mr. CAUTLEY: What the policy was.

Sir A. BOSCAWEN: I will read the question and answer so that there shall be no difference. The hon. Member asked,
When the Parliamentary Secretary to the Hoard of Agriculture will be able to make a statement of the Government's policy as to the price for 1920 wheat; and whether he will bear in mind that such statement should be made in the next two or three weeks so as to enable farmers to decide how much, if any, land they will set aside for fallowing and preparing for wheat to be sown next autumn?'
The answer I gave was:
The only guarantee that can be given at present is that provided for in Section 2 (1) of the Corn Production Act, 1917."—[Official REPORT, 3rd March, 1919, cols. 18 and 19.]

Mr. CAUTLEY: That is 45s. a quarter, which means bankruptcy.

Sir A. BOSCAWEN: I quite agree that is 45s. a quarter. May I refer my hon. Friend to what I said in the Debate on the Address? I pointed out that, as regards this year's crop, we were disregarding the Corn Production Act altogether, but we had fixed as the minimum price the maximum which prevailed last November. So far as this year goes, therefore, I do not think there will be any difficulty, though I do not know that my hon. and gallant Friend suggests that there is likely to be.

Major O'NEILL: Can the hon. and gallant Gentleman say what is the price?

Sir A. BOSCAWEN: Roughly 75s. 6d. per quarter for wheat. There is a slight alteration to be taken into account, because the actual quarter varies in various
calculations. I give the actual figures as given to me by the Food Department. So much for this year's crops. I further pointed out—and in doing so I asked for the sympathy of the House—that the manner in which that was going to be carried out was now being considered by the Government. I said I was not in a position at that time to make any statement—nor am I in a position to do so now. In regard to the future, I realise as much as the hon. Member, or any hon. Member, that the conditions laid down in the Corn Production Act have been entirely upset by the rise in wages, which had not entered into calculation when the Act was passed, and which vary very greatly from the minimum put in the Act. The minimum wage in the Act is 25s. The guaranteed price for next year's wheat is 45s. per quarter. We all know that the minimum wage in any county has been fixed a great deal above the minimum of the Act. In every county it is, I believe, above 30s.; in some counties it is 40s., or more. I do not hesitate to say—I said it before in my observations on the Address—that the balance between wages and prices which was set out in the Corn Production Act has been entirely upset. I realise, and the Government fully realise, that it will be necessary to reconsider the whole scheme of that Act, and that it may be necessary to extend the Act and also to alter the guaranteed prices put in the Act. I further pointed out that this year was hardly the time to do it.

Mr. CAUTLEY: Why not?

Sir A. BOSCAWEN: For this reason: The condition of world prices are to-day so unsettled that, if you fix another price here and now, the chances are that it may not be the right price after a while. Nobody at the present time knows the value of money, and what wheat prices are likely to be in a short time. If we now were to amend this Act, extend it for a period of years, and put in certain prices, they might be much too high, and then the State would suffer by having to pay those unnecessarily high guaranteed prices for the term of years; or they might be too low, in which case the farmer would suffer. Therefore, I laid it down—and I repeat now, though I fully admit the difficulties of the farmer to-day, especially when considering matters with a view to preparing his land for cultivation next year—that to bring in a large Bill altering and extending the Corn Production Act
would be, in my opinion, and in the opinion of those who advise us, a most unwise proceeding at present.

Mr. CAUTLEY: Can the hon. and gallant Gentleman state the price for next year, not for the next two or three years?

Sir A. BOSCAWEN: The point of my hon. Friend is, I take it, that as we have fixed a price for this year, so we might now announce the price for next year.

Mr. CAUTLEY: Certainly!

Sir A. BOSCAWEN: I can only say that I will represent that expression of opinion to my hon. Friend the President of the Board of Agriculture, and the Government. I cannot go beyond that.

Captain Sir B. STANIER: Can the hon. and gallant Gentleman say when he will be in a position to announce the extension of the guarantee?

Sir A. BOSCAWEN: No, I am afraid that question is rather a hard one. I cannot possibly here and now, as he can see, make any such statement. But I am fully aware of the difficulty, and the Hon. Member may rely upon me doing the utmost I can in the matter. There is the other point which was raised, and which, I know, is causing a great deal of grievance, and legitimate grievance, at the present time. Farmers grew a lot of corn last year and now they have great difficulty in disposing of it!

Sir B. STANIER: The millers will not take it.

Sir A. BOSCAWEN: They are taking a good deal.

Sir B. STANIER: Yes, and leaving a lot of it!

Sir A. BOSCAWEN: Well, the figures I have show that a great deal of wheat is being sold now—a great deal more than in the corresponding period of last year. I have not for the moment the figures with me, and, therefore, I will not go fully into that matter.

Sir B. STANIER: Is the hon. and gallant Gentleman aware that the millers will only receive it if the farmer will accept a less price that he should accept. I have got wheat held up now in my possession.

Sir A. BOSCAWEN: If I had known that this Debate was coming on I would have got the figures showing precisely
what has been done in the last few weeks, and what the price was. I do not think however, though I cannot remember exactly, that the statistics would confirm the view expressed by my hon. and gallant Friend. I fully appreciate the trouble, the risk, and the difficulty of disposing of the wheat. The explanation, however, is really, I think, very simple, and I mentioned it when I spoke on the previous occasion. Nobody expected that the War would end as suddenly as it did. The Wheat Commission, acting on behalf of the Government, were compelled to buy sufficient corn, and had to make commitments, to see the country through if the War lasted another twelve months. The House should remember, and realise, that they were bound to do that. They would have been reproached, and very justly, with having let the country down if they had not done so. What happened? The War came suddenly to an end. The submarine menace disappeared. The difficulties of getting our ships into port also disappeared. The result was, and is, that the corn shipped from America, instead of coming in slowly, came in very much more quickly than we anticipated, and the mills—and as everybody knows all the biggest mills—the mills with the greatest amount of storage in our ports—have been simply filled up with this foreign wheat. And the result is that, for the time being, they have so much foreign wheat on their hands, occupying their storage room, that it has not been possible for them to buy English wheat to the extent anticipated, and as otherwise they would have done. But I am sure the matter is going to right itself. I am told, though I am only speaking from information given to me by the Wheat Commission, that they have not over-bought for the year. If that is so, my hon. Friend beside me in charge of the Bill will not utilise any of its Clauses—or, rather, the Food Controller—to buy more foreign wheat. Why on earth should he? And as the foreign wheat is used up a market will be found for that part of the British crop which has not yet been sold, and the farmer's difficulties will disappear.

Mr. HOHLER: For what period have they not over-bought?

Sir A. BOSCAWEN: I regret I cannot give exactly the information asked for. Not knowing that this Debate was coming on, it is impossible for me to give answers
to some of the questions, but if any hon. Member likes to put a question down, or to ask me privately, I will give him all the information I can. What I wish to say is that I can assure the House, and the hon. Member who has attacked the Board—I think rather harshly—that there is no lack of sympathy on the part of the Government. We realise the difficulties of the farmers. We realise their somewhat clamant demands. We are only too anxious to meet their views. The Government have got the matter in hand. For the time being we think we have made what is a very fair bargain for the farmers in respect of this year's crops.

Major EDWARD WOOD: My hon. and gallant Friend who has just replied on behalf of the Board will not be surprised if those of us who are here representing the cause of the farmers are unable to say that we regard his reply as taking the matter very much further. If the case were such as he has put forward, farmers would be the best pleased class in the community. The hon. and gallant Gentleman who represents the Board has been as lavish in his sympathy as he has been sparing in any definition of a practical policy. I only want to put to him two or three practical considerations. The hon. Gentleman in charge of the Bill must have been struck by this fact, whether or not some will agree with what has been said on the benches opposite, that at least we agree that we are not satisfied to vote money blindly on this topic, and without knowing a little more, of the policy of the Government. If the matter is taken to a Division, I shall certainly support the hon. Member who opposes the Vote. What I want to put to the Board of Agriculture is that it is really not enough to repeat what I would, without disrespect, call the platitudes of the Board of Agriculture about the controlled prices of 1919 and even 1920, unless you take a further step and fulfil the conditions that have been pressed upon the Board times without number—secure a market for the farmer at those controlled prices. These are two points—controlled prices and a market. My hon. Friend opposite, who made the observation just now, is plainly right when he says that the farmers are not able to dispose of their wheat, and the same thing is true to-day of oats. I can give the hon. Member farmer after farmer in my part of England who has been compelled to take several shillings less for his oats than the controlled price
which is so much talked of in this House. I would press this on my hon. and gallant Friend. He would do more to satisfy agricultural opinion and to convince it that the Government is in earnest in this matter if he would place himself in consultation with his colleagues in the Food Ministry, and forthwith issue Regulations to ensure that millers should use a definite proportion of English native wheat in every sack of flour. That is not being done at the present time. If it were done, it would go a long way to relieve the glut of English wheat. I would appeal to the House not to let this matter be side tracked by the suggestion that this is the resuscitation of the old controversy between cheap food for the towns and the other side of the question. It is really no such thing. I recognise the force of the argument put forward by my right hon. Friend opposite and the hon. Gentleman below the Gangway as to the effect of high prices on industrial unrest. We recognise them, and obviously they are of great weight. But that is not inconsistent with securing justice to the farmer. Would my hon. Friend on behalf of the Board of Agriculture feel able to go as far as this: We have recently seen announced in the papers the appointment of an extremely strong Commission to ascertain farming costs. I do not think it can be argued that farm prices must ultimately depend upon the cost of production. I know a great many people have a suspicion of farmers' balance sheets, but if you get your costs established on reliable evidence, would my hon. Friend use all his influence to get agricultural prices fixed on the unimpeachable cost of production? If he does not do that, I see nothing but ruin in front of the agricultural industry at no distant date. Everybody who has lived in our country districts knows that during the last few years labour has more than doubled in order to meet the demands put upon farmers. More cottages have been built, and more men are employed. If the Government now fails to declare its policy that condition of things will disappear in favour of the conditions which existed a few years ago. I do not think hon. Members have the least conception of the sense of insecurity prevailing because the Government have not in turn declared their agricultural policy. Do let us remember that agricultural policy is not a thing of one or two years, but it runs over the whole farming rotation.
Therefore I would press my hon. Friend to go rather further than he has yet been able to do. Recently while travelling in the train I met a seed merchant who said his business was at a standstill because farmers did not know where they were, and they were not able to place their usual orders. Everywhere you find the same uncertainty and reluctance to take risks, and I assure my hon. Friend that that feeling will not be exercised unless the Government and his Department refine their policy in more clear terms than they have yet done. They ought to really satisfy those who are farming to-day that the efforts they have made in the last two years will not fail to be recognised now that the immediate danger seems to have passed.

Mr. ROYCE: I have been very much interested in this Debate, and after listening to it I have conceived a good deal of sympathy with the right hon. Gentleman opposite who, in this instance, is bearing the brunt of the attack. I am sure he is possessed with the best intentions in the world, and he is full of that fluid sympathy which flows so spontaneously from his Department, but I think that sympathy ought to be translated into action. We must remember that discontent is not prevalent only in the case of the farmers. We must admit that forces have, been at work to increase our food supply and farmers have had to change their agricultural methods at the call of the country. They have done so, and ordinary fairness must prompt the Government and Board of Agriculture to help the farmers in this crisis.
I am more concerned with the position of the agricultural labourer. Since the agricultural labourer cannot receive his wages until the farmer receives them, I am in full sympathy with the farmer. We have heard a great deal about the action of the Department in connection with the corn they have bought. I was a member of a deputation on Friday last that interviewed the Minister of Agriculture and the Minister of Food in connection with the potato crop, and we were told that the Government have bought the whole potato crop and had taken it over as from the 1st November, but they could not take deliveries until they had sold them to somebody else. Of course, that left people in a very unsatisfied state, and if this Debate will cause the Department of Agriculture to put its back up and assert
itself, and say that it intends to do that which the Premier has indicated, namely, that he would like to make agriculture the great industry it deserves to be in a State like ours, then I am sure the right hon. Gentleman and his Department would receive very much more sympathy from the agriculturists of this country. We must keep our people upon the land. That is the place from whence the greater proportion of the fine specimens of humanity we see in this House come. I think for these reasons we must maintain our agricultural industry if you want to maintain your Empire. I ask the right hon. Gentleman to use all his influence to bring his Department into such a condition that the agricultural community can repose their confidence in it. That confidence has been sadly shaken, and if this Debate is the means of bucking up the Department it will have done some good. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will not take my remarks amiss, because I have reason to thank the Department of Agriculture for their action during the War, for they did a really great national service. If however, they are about to allow conflicting influences to influence them in letting the farmers and the labourers down, then they will find that the happy work they have done in the past will be negatived by their impotence at the present time.

The MINISTER of FOOD (Mr. George Roberts): I apologise for my absence when certain questions were raised relating to food, but I was not aware that this Debate would come on so early. However, I take this early opportunity of replying to questions which I understand have been addressed to me. First of all the question of wheat was referred to. This question has been widely canvassed, and we are frequently asked why we did not avail ourselves of the world's cheapest sources of supply, and that we still continue to keep up prices. There are two or three considerations which we have to bear in mind. First of all, tonnage cannot be found to lift more than 1,000,000 tons of wheat from Australia to arrive in Europe during the present cereal year. Secondly, if we were to concentrate tonnage on the Argentine supply, that undoubtedly would have a tendency to force up prices there. Thirdly, cereals are still being bought on an inter-allied basis, and clearly we cannot take all the cheap wheat ourselves and leave the expensive sources to our Allies.
I am advised that even if we could, the price of flour would not fall below that required to produce the nine penny loaf. I state that to show that the consumer, as consumer, is not suffering because of the policy that we are now pursuing. When we are able to get this cheaper supply, of course we diminish the drain upon the national Exchequer for the subsidy. It will be observed that my hon. Friend who has just preceded me has quite a distinct problem from my own. The home farmer is not anxious that these cheap supplies should be brought in, but my concern is to lower the prices of food as soon as possible. The Prime Minister asked me, when my right hon. Friend left office, to concentrate on food, and a reduction in price as large and rapidly as possible, and that is the policy I am endeavouring to carry out, and any policy that would result in cheapening an essential commodity of life would have my support. I understand the next question of the necessity of having to buy beans has already been dealt with, but it was instituted for the purpose of economising maize. Nevertheless, I realise that there was an element of injustice in compelling people to take what they did not require, but it was a war necessity, and I desired that the practice should cease as soon as possible, and we have stopped it now. That grievance is removed. It was not an expedient introduced to irritate people, but it was regarded as an emergency war measure.
My right hon. Friend questioned me about meat supplies, and asked what were the total stocks in the United Kingdom. I am advised that we have 96,000 tons in stock, equal to three or four weeks' consumption, and if we use it to supplement the home-killed supply it would last about ten weeks. My right hon. Friend will agree that that is not too large a supply to keep on hand, and I regard it as prudent even if the Ministry of Food ceases to exist—for other considerations I shall regard it as prudent—that stocks are in hand in order to protect the home consumer from, say, the operations of the great international trusts. Therefore, I think that one can claim on the face of it that the stocks are not unduly large, and, from the standpoint of the producer, and in the interests of the consumer, I think it is desirable that we should keep these stocks.

Sir D. MACLEAN: May I ask if this large stock is under the complete control
and disposal of the Government, and whether these trusts have nothing whatever to do with them?

Mr. ROBERTS: These supplies are at the disposal of the Government.

Sir D. MACLEAN: Absolutely? I was anxious to know whether these stocks which are held by the Ministry of Food or the other Departments are under the entire control of the Government and have these trusts anything to do with the stocks now in this country.

8.0 p.m.

Mr. ROBERTS: These stocks are under the control of the Government. When control ceases there is a great danger that prices may rise to the detriment of consumers owing to the manipulations of trusts, and I certainly regard it as prudent that we should retain some stocks in order as far as practicable to deal with any situation of that sort. The policy of the Ministry of Food is to safeguard the interests of the consumer, and that is the only reason why I make the point. My right hon. Friend will be aware of the fact that a reduction of 2d. per lb. came into operation yesterday. I am now considering the possibility of a further and substantial reduction at an early date, and I see that there is a possibility of my being able to make the announcement before long that such a reduction is practicable. This will only be possible because of the assistance which the Treasury have extended to me. It is widely stated in certain quarters that the Treasury insist upon our holding up stocks in order that loss may not be sustained. I am very happy to say that the Treasury are rendering me great assistance in the direction of wiping off losses in order that the consumer may benefit. My right hon. Friend will be gratified to know that control of tea will cease as from the 24th of this month. It would have been possible to have done it before, but we find it necessary to give the trade due notice. They requested that they should have a month's notice, but as a matter of fact we gave them rather more than a month in order that they might be able to clear their stocks and make fresh arrangements. I hope that, supplemented by the further fact that detailed arrangements are being made for the disposal of our stocks to the trade, will meet the view of my right hon. Friend. My right hon. Friend asked the general question when
all control is to be got rid of. It is far too broad a question for me alone to deal with. It is a question which probably affects other Departments as well as the Ministry of Food, but, speaking generally, our policy is to relinquish control when we are satisfied that control has a tendency to keep up prices and that de-control on the other hand gives the assurance that prices will be lowered. Our policy is control or de-control according as we deem that the consumers' interests will be served. Of course, control was a war measure, and undoubtedly the Ministry of Food has very largely justified itself. A good deal of profiteering did take place, and it was a contributory cause of the great unrest which prevailed. When the public interests may safely be left to the ordinary manipulations of trade, then we will relinquish control, but experience has proved that there are certain forms of control which should assume a permanent character, such things, for instance, as the securing of net weights and qualities of margarine and other things. We are proposing to ask Parliament to give us power to make those things permanent in character.

Mr. CLYNES: Do I understand from the right hon. Gentleman that there will be embodied in some Bill to be brought before the House a suggestion for permanent control?

Mr. ROBERTS: My right hon. Friend will be aware of the fact that the Consumers' Council directed our attention to the advisability of retaining certain powers which have been exercised under the Defence of the Realm Acts. We have gone carefully into the matter, and we feel that the Consumers' Council were right in the recommendation that they made. We therefore propose to introduce a Bill in order to give statutory effect to that recommendation. I think I have answered the questions which my right hon. Friend addressed to me. I wish one could have had more notice of them and that we could have had due notice of the scope of this

Bill, but I hope on some subsequent date to be able to go more exhaustively into the operations of the Ministry of Food.

Colonel WHELER: I think those who have listened to the speech of the right hon. Gentleman in dealing with the wheat question will realise more than ever the urgent necessity of a statement from the Government on their agricultural policy. Nobody is going to complain for one moment of the policy of the Food Controller in cheapening many articles of food, but the House has to consider the wheat question from the point of view of whether the country is to be dependent to a certain extent upon wheat produced here or entirely dependent upon wheat brought in from outside. According to the statement of the Food Controller, his policy is to cheapen wheat as far as he possibly can, and probably he is perfectly right in the interests of the consumer as a whole, but we who have to think of agriculture must realise what that will mean to the agricultural industry as a whole and how it must affect farming and, therefore, the question of wages. The two statements that we have had from the Ministers replying to this Debate show that the policy of the Government with regard to agriculture should be stated without delay. Otherwise, the farming community will not know where they are and will not be able to make any provision for the future. They will, therefore, be making provision, I should say at a great loss, to lay down land to grass and to go back to conditions that we want to avoid, conditions under which we had a very large amount of grass land and were largely dependent upon wheat brought in from outside. Having heard the statement of the right hon. Gentleman, I do think it is our duty as agriculturists to call upon the Government for a statement of their agricultural policy not for the next year, but for future years, so that the agricultural community may know where they stand.
Question put, "That the word 'now' stand part of the Question."

The House divided: Ayes, 193; Noes, 49.

Division No. 8.]
AYES.
[8.9 p.m.


Agg-Gardner, Sir James Tynte
Barnes, Major H. (Newcastle, E.)
Birchall, Major J. D.


Ainsworth, Captain C.
Barnett, Captain Richard W.
Blades, Sir George R.


Astbury, Lt.-Com. F. W.
Barnston, Major Harry
Borwick, Major G. O.


Atkey, A. R.
Barton, Sir William (Oldham)
Boscawen, Sir Arthur Griffith-


Baldwin, Stanley
Beauchamp, Sir Edward
Bowerman, Rt. Hon. C. W.


Balfour, George (Hampstead)
Benn, Com. Ian Hamilton (G'nwich)
Boyd-Carpenter, Major A.


Barnes, Rt. Hon. G. N. (Gorbals)
Bigland, Alfred
Broad, Thomas Tucker


Buckley, Lt.-Col. A.
Hopkinson, Austin (Mossley)
Raper, A. Baldwin


Burdon, Col. Rowland
Hurst, Major G. B.
Rees, Sir J. D.


Cairns, John
Inskip, T. W. H.
Reid, D. D.


Campbell, J. G. D.
Irving, Dan
Rendall, Atheistan


Carr, W. T.
Jephcott, A. R.
Renwick, G.


Carson, Rt. Hon. Sir Edward H.
Johnstons, J.
Richardson, Albion (Peckham)


Carter, R. A. D. (Manchester)
Jones, Sir E. R. (Merthyr)
Richardson, Alex. (Gravesend)


Carter, W. (Mansfield)
Jones, Sir Evan (Pembroke)
Richardson, R. (Houghton)


Cayzer, Major H. R.
Jones, G. W. H. (Stoke Newington)
Roberts, Rt. Hon. G. H. (Norwich)


Chamberlain, N. (Birm., Ladywood)
Jones, J. (Silvertown)
Robinson, T. (Stretford, Lancs.)


Clough, R.
Jones, J. Towyn (Carmarthen)
Rowlands, James


Clynes, Rt. Hon. J. R.
Jones, Wm. Kennedy (Hornsey)
Samuels, Rt. Hon. A. W. (Dublin Univ.)


Coates, Major Sir Edward F.
Law, Rt. Hon. A. Bonar (Glasgow)
Sanders, Colonel Robert Arthur


Collins, Col. G. P. (Greenock)
Lewis, Rt. Hon. J. H. (Univ. Wales)
Scott, A. M. (Glas., Bridgeton)


Compton-Rickett, Rt. Hon. Sit J.
Lewis, T. A. (Pontypridd, Glam.)
Seager, Sir William


Cory, J. H. (Cardiff)
Lindsay, William Arthur
Seddon, J. A.


Cowan, D. M. (Scottish Univ.)
Lister, Sir R. Ashton
Shortt, Rt. Hon. E.


Cozens-Hardy, Hon. W. H.
Lloyd, George Butler
Smith, Capt. A. (Nelson and Colne)


Craig, Capt. C. (Antrim)
Locker-Lampson G. (Wood Green)
Smithers, Alfred W.


Craig, Col. Sir James (Down, Mld.)
Lort-Williams, J.
Sprot, Col. Sir Alexander


Craik, Rt. Hon. Sir Henry
Loseby, Captain C. E.
Stanley, Col. Hon. G. F. (Preston)


Davies, Alfred Thomas (Lincoln)
Lynn, R. J.
Stephenson, Col. H. K.


Davies, Sir Joseph (Crewe)
Lyon, L.
Stevens, Marshall


Denniss, E. R. Bartley (Oldham)
M'Curdy, Charles Albert
Sturrock, J. Leng-


Dewhurst, Lieut.-Com. H.
M'Donald, D. H. (Bothwell, Lanark)
Sugden, Lieut. W. H.


Dockrell, Sir M.
M'Guffin, Samuel
Surtees, Brig.-Gen. H. C.


Donald, T.
Mackinder, Halford J.
Sutherland, Sir William


Doyle, N. Grattan
M'Laren, R. (Lanark, N.)
Swan, J. E. C.


Edwards, A. Clement (East Ham, S.)
M'Lean, Lt.-Col. C. W. W. (Brigg)
Taylor, J. (Dumbarton)


Edwards, J. H. (Glam., Neath)
Maitland, Sir A. D. Steel-
Taylor, J. W. (Chester-le-Street)


Eyres-Monsell, Com.
Malone, Col. C. L. (Leyton, E.)
Thomas, Sir R. (Wrexham, Denb.)


Falcon, Captain M.
Malone, Major P. (Tottenham, S.)
Thompson, F. C. (Aberdeen, S.)


Farquharson, Major A. C.
Mitchell, William Lane-
Thomson, T. (Middlesbrough, W.)


Fell, Sir Arthur
Moles, Thomas
Thorne, Col. W. (Plaistow)


Fisher, Rt. Hon. Herbert A. L.
Mond, Rt. Hon. Sir Alfred Moritz
Tryon, Major George Clement


Foxcroft, Captain C.
Moore-Brabazon, Lt.-Col. J. C. T.
Waddington, R.


Galbraith, Samuel
Morden, Col. H. Grant
Walton, J. (York, Don Valley)


Gibbs, Colonel George Abraham
Mosley, Oswald
Ward, Col. L. (Kingston-upon-Hull)


Gilmour, Lt.-Col. John
Munro, Rt. Hon. Robert
Warren, Sir Alfred H.


Glyn, Major R.
Murray, Dr. D. (Western Isles)
Watson, Captain John Bertrand


Grayson, Lieut.-Col. H. M.
Nall, Major Joseph
Whitla, Sir William


Greame, Major P. Lloyd-
Neal, Arthur
Wild, Sir Ernest Edward


Green, J. F. (Leicester)
Nelson, R. F. W. R.
Williams, A. (Consett, Durham)


Greig, Col James William
Newman, Sir R. H. S. D. (Exeter)
Williams, Col. P. (Middlesbrough)


Griggs, Sir Peter
Nicholson, R. (Doncaster)
Williamson, Rt. Hon. Sir Archibald


Gritten, W. G. Howard
O'Neill, Capt. Hon. Robert W. H.
Wilson, Rt. Hon. J. W. (Stourbridge)


Grundy, T. W.
Palmer, Major G. M.
Wilson, Col. Leslie (Reading)


Guinness, Lt.-Col. Hon. W.E. (B. St. E.)
Parker, James
Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton)


Hacking, Captain D. H.
Pease, Rt. Hon. Herbert Pike
Wood, Sir H. K. (Woolwich, W.)


Hailwood, A.
Perring, William George
Worsfold, T. Cato


Hall, F. (Yorks, Normanton)
Pickering, Col. Emil W.
Yeo, Sir Alfred William


Hallas, E.
Pinkham, Lieut.-Col. Charles
Young, Lt.-Com. E. H. (Norwich)


Hamilton, Major C. G. C. (Altrincham)
Pownall, Lt.-Col. Assheton
Young, William (Perth and Kinross)


Harmsworth, Cecil B. (Luton, Beds.)
Pratt, John William
Younger, Sir George


Henderson, Major V. L.
Purchase. H. G.



Hirst, G. H.
Rae, H. Norman
TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—Lord Edmund Talbot and Mr. Dudley Ward.


Hood, Joseph
Raeburn, Sir William



Hope, James Fitzalan (Sheffield)
Ramsden, G. T.



Hopkins, J. W. W.
Randies, Sir John Scurrah



NOES.


Archdale, Edward M.
Horne, Edgar (Guildford)
Samuel, S. (Wandsworth, Putney)


Beckett, Hon. Gervase
Howard, Major S. G.
Stanier, Capt. Sir Beville


Bell, Lieut.-Col. W. C. H. (Devizes)
Jackson, Lieut.-Col. Hon. F. S. (York)
Steel, Major S. Strang


Bennett, T. J.
Jones, Henry Haydn (Merioneth)
Thomas, Brig.-Gen. Sir O. (Anglesey)


Brackenbury, Col. H. L.
Kenyon, Barnet
Turton, Edmund Russborough


Burn, Col. C. R. (Torquay)
Macmaster, Donald
Weston, Col. John W.


Carew, Charles R. S. (Tiverton)
McNeill, Ronald (Canterbury)
Wheler, Col. Granville C. H.


Colvin, Brig.-Gen. R. B.
Molson, Major John Elsdale
Wigan, Brig.-Gen. John Tyson


Davies, T (Cirencester)
Moreing, Captain Algernon H.
Williams, Lt.-Com. C. (Tavistock)


Dennis, J. W.
Mount, William Arthur
Williams, Col. Sir R. (Dorset, W.)


Eiliot, Capt W. E. (Lanark)
Newton, Major Harry Kottingham
Wilson, Col. M. (Richmond, Yorks.)


Goff, Sir R. Park
Nicholson, W. (Petersfield)
Winterton, Major Earl


Gould, J. C.
Palmer, Brig.-Gen G. (Westbury)
Wolmer, Viscount


Hickman, Brig.-Gen. Thomas E.
Redmond, Captain William A.
Wood, Major Hon. E. (Ripon)


Hills, Major J. W. (Durham)
Remer, J. B.
Yate, Col. Charles Edward


Hinds, John
Royce, William Stapleton



Hohler, Gerald Fitzroy
Rutherford, Col. Sir J. (Darwen)
TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—Mr. Cautley and Captain FitzRoy.


Bill read a second time, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House for To-morrow.—[Mr. Baldwin.]

Orders of the Day — PRIVATE BUSINESS.

BELFAST HARBOUR BILL (BY ORDER).

Order for Second Reading read.

Motion made and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."

Mr. DEVLIN: I beg to move, to leave out the word "now," and at the end of the Question to add the words "upon this day six months."
I think it would have simplified our procedure this evening if one of the hon. Gentlemen who have put their names on the back of this Bill had enlightened the House on one or two matters, and had given us information in regard to one or two considerations which I venture to submit here in moving the rejection of this Bill. In the first place, we are living in an age of democracy. All our lives, constitutional conditions and progressive ideas are based upon the democratisation of our institutions, and it would have been, I think, rather an advantage if some of those who had backed this measure had told us frankly that the Belfast Harbour Commissioners, who are promoting this Bill, were prepared to recognise the spirit of this age and to introduce into this measure a wider and broader franchise upon which this great trust is to carry out its operation in the City of Belfast. I have been taunted—not in any unfriendly way—by some hon. Gentlemen opposite with the fact that the franchise on which the Harbour Commissioners of Belfast are elected is as broad and wide, if not broader and wider, than many of the other great harbour trusts in these islands. I am not prepared to contest that, although I am not prepared to admit it. But that makes not the slightest difference to me. It is not a question whether this harbour trust is more or less democratic than other institutions of a similar character. To me the question is, does it represent the people? I say it does not represent the people, and that no institution should live in Belfast or anywhere else which is not inspired by a democratic spirit and based upon a democratic foundation. Here is a great public trust which denies to the masses of the people the right to that legitimate influence which every man is entitled to exercise in the performance of civic functions, whether in the direction of corporate affairs, in connection with our boards of guardians, or in connection with
our water trusts and harbour trusts; and, for my part, although I know I shall be defeated when I bring this question to a final issue, I would take every opportunity afforded to me to rivet public attention on the matter, and, if possible, to make a fight against the perpetuation of a system by which a trust of this character is confined to a leisured and special class of the community.
Take this harbour trust. One would imagine that the welfare of a great port like the Port of Belfast would be promoted by having represented upon it every element of the community. It has been said that the constitution of this body is more democratic and more broadly based than the Harbour Trusts of Cork and Dublin, but on the Port and Docks Board of Dublin—an institution which I should be the very last to defend—there are representatives of the Corporation of Dublin. There are no representatives of the corporation upon the Harbour Trust of Belfast. [An Hon. Member: "The Lord Mayor!"] The Lord Mayor is there by co-option. [An Hon. Member: "He is ex officio!"] The corporation is allowed to select one man, the Lord Mayor. [An Hon. Member: "And one other!"] There is no other so far as I am aware. I question very much whether the Lord Mayor is ex officio, but at all events the corporation, as such, has no representation. So deeply embedded are these gentlemen in Belfast in their Tory and reactionary ideas that even the Corporation of Belfast—the most reactionary and most conservative body in Ireland or in Great Britain—is supposed to be too progressive to have its own representation upon a harbour trust. Then the body for whom I speak—the Catholics of Belfast—have no representation. They constitute 100,000 out of 400,000 population. No doubt they do not contain the wealthiest members of the community—that was why they sent me here—but, after all, they contribute to the wealth of the community; they are the toilers and workers in the community, and many of them, in face of tremendous drawbacks and the difficulties placed in their way, commercially and otherwise, have sprung to posts of commercial and industrial eminence in that city, yet not one of them is considered fit to be elected to this body. There is just as much chance for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle as there is for a Catholic to pass into the sacred precincts of the Harbour Commissioners of Belfast. [An HON.
MEMBER: "Do you suggest that they should be co-opted?"] If the Commissioners were wise, that is what they would do. There would be no need to make a protest against the exclusion of the representatives of 100,000 of the population if they were co-opted.
Note the intolerant spirit of this body! Although they have the right of co-option, they would not co-opt a Catholic on that trust. You may ask me, What has religion to do with this? [Hon. Members: "Hear, hear."] Very well, what has religion to do with it? Religion or irreligion has everything to do with everything in Belfast. They say, "Oh, do not introduce religion into it, because we are masters of the situation and we keep the representatives of your religion out of it!" But if you want Home Rule for Ireland, they are the very gentlemen who blow the bugle and sound the war whoop if the Catholics of Ireland attempt to secure any form of liberty for themselves. I will tell you why religion enters into it. One would imagine that when these gentlemen have the whole control and the dominant power in Belfast they would be at any rate generous enough to give an absolutely unrepresented minority of that population—100,000 out of 400,000—some decent chance in the appointments to the salaried positions in that great city. Before I come to that, may I point out that in my judgment no institution should stand where the great mass of the people are disfranchised and where a very small, indeed an infinitesimal, minority of the population have all the votes? Some of them have forty-nine votes, some of them have thirty-three votes, some of them have twenty votes, and so it goes on in this cycle. The suggestion that underlies the determination of hon. Gentlemen opposite to defend this citadel of reaction is that neither the Catholics nor the working classes have the trains, or the civic spirit, or the enterprise, or the knowledge to add their contributing element to the building up of the power, industrial and progressive, of that great city. I deny that altogether. If that principle were admitted in regard to a great harbour trust, why is it not admitted in regard to Parliament, municipalities, and the great governing bodies? If you admit the principle that they are not fit, because they are working men or because they belong to a particular creed, to have the power of electing men to guide that trust, you must
universally accept the principle that men of that type are not fit for the discharge of the ordinary functions of Government which the State has entrusted to them.
Let me come to the question of why I am entitled to raise the question of religion in this matter—a thing I dislike very much. When Catholics are not allowed to have anything to say in the management of this trust, one would imagine that there would be sufficient shrewdness to treat Catholics decently. Instead of that, we find that the wages paid by the Harbour Trust to its salaried official staff amount to £1,260 a year, of which £400 is paid to Catholics. There is one Catholic employed by them and fifty-six non-Catholics. The berthing masters receive £2,212 11s. 3d., one Catholic employed. The harbour police receive £8,379; three Catholic harbour police are employed. The pilots receive £1,382, of which the Catholics receive £150. Yet the Catholics constitute one-fourth of the entire population of this city. I know what I shall be told. It has been impressed on me by hon. Members opposite time and again that after all you are in a minority, and minorities must suffer. That is really the happy epigram of Mr. Birrell. There never was anything that so enraged hon. Members as that declaration when he made it. Mr. Birrell was then dealing with the fact that those gentlemen were in a minority. They revolted against it, and rightly, because minorities ought not to suffer. Minorities ought to be like little children. They ought to be tenderly handled. These are the representatives of minorities, and I want to put their loyalty to this principle to the test. I see them all in a row. They are here for this Debate. I ask them now to answer me this question: Do they think it fair, as gentlemen who have played on public passion in this country because they were in a minority, that in a great trust of this character there should be not a single Catholic, and that the salaries paid to officials should be £12,060 per year to their friends and only £400 to the minority who are not represented on that board?
Then I come to another question. Not only is the corporation, the great municipal trust of the city, not directly represented, not only are the Catholics not represented, but Protestant labour is not represented. The Catholic population of Belfast is 100,000 out of something like 400,000. That is a minority, and again
minorities must suffer. But the working classes in Belfast are 80 or 85 per cent. of the entire population. Does anyone imagine that the working people in Belfast are going to allow themselves to be blindly denied their fair rights in the adjustment of everything that touches their lives and affects their interests in that city, and not to have a single representative upon one of the great public trusts? I will give the House an example of the need there is for labour representation on this body. I received this morning a communication from a man I do not know and never met. He says:
I have been requested by a considerable number employed at Harland and Wolff's shipyard to place before you a few grievances existing at present in Belfast Harbour. Thousands of men employed in the shipbuilding yard on the County Down side have had to use the harbour ferry as a means of transport to and from their work. The method employed by the Commissioners is antediluvian. The vessels used for this purpose are slight and small and I might also add that on many occasions during the War men were compelled to return home in the early morning rather than stand in a long queue in a downpour of rain. The same conditions prevail to-day. Crowds of men have to wait a considerable time before being ferried across to their homes, and many a time are soaked to the skin before reaching their abode. It is a common sight to see a man dragged from the water where he has been unfortunately pushed in by the crowd behind. Only on Tuesday last a friend of mine almost met his death by drowning due to the bad system, and but for the plucky action of a fellow workman—
whose name he gives—
employed as a fitter in Harland and Wolff's who plunged into the icy cold water and brought the unfortunate man out of danger. He was taken in an ambulance to the hospital to receive treatment. The unfortunate fellow has not yet returned to work. This is a fact.
And then he gives his name.
I do not wish to deal further with these conditions as I might go on writing for hours. But according to our Press here in Belfast the Harbour Commissioners are going to make great extensions, but never a word regarding the system of transport for the men who are employed in the shipbuilding yard and who on the dark nights and mornings stand shivering on the ferry steps in danger of being drowned. However, we trust to your usual influence to remedy this prevailing evil and give the men an up-to-date system of reaching their work in good time.
Why should a working man have to write to me to get that done? Why should he not have the right of one of those who constitute the community whose enterprise, whose labour, and whose blood and toil have built up this great port and this great city? Why should they have to write to a
Member of Parliament to get this, or something like it, done and popular attention directed to it instead of being able to do it by having a representative of his class on the trust to stand up and speak for his class?
I suppose some hon. Members expected I was going to enter into an analytical examination of this Bill and give a dry recital of reasons why I should deal with this matter in detail. Nothing of the sort. I am anxious to give the Harbour Commissioners, and every public body that is entrusted with great responsibility, all the power it can secure for the public good, but I take advantage of the opportunity which this Bill and this House afford to say that it is not fair, it is not decent, it is not defensible to carry on that trust by a denial to the great and vital interests involved of the right and the responsibility of guiding that trust in carrying on its business. Minorities are entitled to representation. It would be a good thing for the harbour board if it had representatives of a minority. It is not fair to boycott and ostracise the Catholics of Belfast, who constitute a quarter of the community. It cannot be defended if you try to keep working men from representing their class, whose lives are governed so largely by the conduct of the harbour trust. I will put this to a Division if I should only get half a dozen votes, and I hope Gentlemen who have lived and thrived upon the claims of minorities to due recognition will tell us what they propose to do to satisfy the just demands of the minority I represent. I notice one of the Labour Unionist representatives is very ready to rise. Perhaps he will answer this question. Does he or does he not approve of the refusal of this body, through the exercise of its franchise, to give to his own class the representation they ask? These are simple questions. I am going to be replied to by a great forensic advocate. I know he will bring all his brilliant skill into the defence of this indefensible cause, but I hope for once in his life he will rise above his prejudice, and, being a defender of minorities, will be consistent in this, that a minority is a minority whether it is on his side or is not.

Mr. MacVEAGH: I beg to second the Amendment.
I hope the House will favourably consider the representations which my hon. Friend has made. The manner in which the Belfast Harbour Board has discharged
its duty is a matter of notoriety. [An HON. MEMBER: "Very good."] Very good from the point of view of the very prosperous employer of labour who makes that objection and of his friends who have taken very good care that not a representative of the working classes ever obtained a seat upon that board. I will be very glad if he will tell us what Labour Members ever sat upon it. In addition to that they have carefully excluded from the Board all representatives of the Catholic minority who form nearly a fourth of the population. My hon. Friend, who has moved the rejection of the Bill, has stated that the defence for the other side will be that minorities must suffer. I rather assume that they will allege that the same thing happened in other parts of Ireland. I ventured, by way of anticipating that argument, to say that there is not a corner of Ireland where such a story can be unfolded as is unfolded in the city of Belfast. No Catholic was allowed to enter the Belfast Corporation until a Conservative Government in this House took the Belfast Corporation by the throat when they were promoting a Bill here, and compelled it to carve out the wards in the city of Belfast so as to give that minority a representation which it had hitherto been denied. That is absolutely unprecedented in the whole history of municipal institutions in this country, and yet a Conservative Government in this House found it necessary to take this step to put an end to this scandal of the exclusion of all Catholics. The wards were divided and the Catholics obtained some representation on the city corporation.
But the evil of the Belfast Harbour Board was never redressed, and there to this day no Catholic has been allowed; Turk, Jew, or atheist may enter, but not a Papist, and no Catholic has any chance whatever of obtaining an appointment under that Board unless he is lucky enough to conceal the religious opinions which he holds. Some of the hon. Gentlemen on the opposite side I have challenged to get up and tell this House when any Catholic was ever elected, and I challenge them to contradict the figures given by my Friend as to the manner in which Catholics are excluded, and I challenge them to give the name of a representative of Labour who was ever admitted to the charmed circle of the Belfast Harbour Board. I do not know much about the merits of this particular Bill. I assume that like other har-
bour Bills and corporation Bills there is a proposal to confer further powers upon that body. If that is so, it is the undoubted right of this House to intervene and ask how they have used their powers already conferred upon them, and it is the duty of this House, if they have abused them, to prevent them continuing the abuse of them in the future. That can be very easily done by the procedure of a Select Committee, but for the present we have to establish our case, that the Belfast Harbour Board has grossly abused its powers in the past, that it has been a monopoly for the ship owners and the wealthy classes in Belfast, that not even the middle classes are allowed a voice in the government. That being so, I strongly support, as a Belfast man, the proposal put forward by my hon. Friend, and I hope that the House will think once, twice, and thrice before conferring further powers.

The CHAIRMAN of WAYS and MEANS (Mr. Whitley): As Chairman of Ways and Means it is my duty to advise the House on matters relating to private Bills and I shall therefore be pardoned for intervening for a moment. This Bill now before the House is one of similar Bills promoted by Dock and Harbour Boards to enable them to meet the new after-war conditions, and in particular to meet the largely increased wages which have become payable to the persons employed in the docks and harbours all over the country. I have said that there have been in this Session twenty of these Bills; nineteen of them have passed through their Second Heading without any objection, and this particular Bill is the twentieth. Amongst the Bills that were not blocked on the Second Reading were similar Bills from Dublin and from Cork, and I wish to recall to the House really what this Bill is. The Bill consists of three Clauses only, and out of the three Clauses one only is what we call the operative Clause, namely, the second Clause. This gives powers to the Commissioners of the Belfast Harbour to obtain some increase of their charges to meet the new cost of working the harbour, and to enable them to carry out improvements to bring or keep the equipment of the harbour up to date, and in accordance with modern conditions. Now, I do not take any exception at all to the speeches to which we have just listened. They are in accordance with the rights of Members of the House of Commons to bring forward at this stage griev-
ances that they may have with regard to the particular statutory authority concerned, and I have no doubt that what has been said by the two hon. Members who have spoken will be duly taken note of both in Belfast and in other quarters of Ireland.
I do not pretend to pronounce an opinion as to whether or not that it may not be desirable that this and other harbour boards might be brought up in constitution to more modern ideas. It may quite well be that there is a good deal to be said in that direction, and I should be the last person, therefore, to take exception to what has been said in that regard. But the first point I wish to put plainly before the House is that that cannot be done under the present Bill—that is, an alteration in the constitution of the Commissioners of the Belfast Harbour. It is outside the notices which have to be given according to our private Bill legislation, and therefore it is impossible to accomplish that under the present Bill. It would also be impossible in the case of Dublin or Cork or the Liverpool Mersey Docks and Harbour, or any ether of the nineteen Bills which are at present before the House of Commons.

Mr. MacVEAGH: Am I to understand that it is not within the competence of this House to refer the Bill to a Select Committee and give an Instruction to the Select Committee to amend the constitution of this board?

The CHAIRMAN of WAYS and MEANS: Certainly, I do not think that this Bill comes within these powers. Whena private Bill is promoted promoters have to give certain notices in the locality, so that people in the locality will know what the proposal is, and will have an opportunity locally of bringing forward their point and also of presenting Petitions to this House on matters relating to the Bill.

Mr. MacVEAGH: Does not my right hon. Friend remember that in the case of the Belfast Corporation Bill, which did not deal with representations, the matter was raised in this House, and the Bill was sent to a Select Committee? The reference to the Select Committee, with the support of the Government of the day, was followed by an Instruction to the Committee to alter the position of the Belfast Cor-
poration before further powers would be conferred on them, and that was carried in this House.

Mr. DEVLIN: And by a Tory Government!

The CHAIRMAN of WAYS and MEANS: I am not in possession of what was done in the case of that Bill, or what were the notices that had been given.

Mr. MacVEAGH: They had nothing to do with franchise.

The CHAIRMAN of WAYS and MEANS: But I am quite sure that in the case of this and the other nineteen of these Bills it is not competent to the Committee to do it, but the hon. Member might have dealt with the question by placing on the Order Paper to-night an Instruction of the kind.

Mr. DEVLIN: I will move it.

The CHAIRMAN of WAYS and MEANS: I do not know what view Mr. Speaker will take of that, but I am confident that it would not be within the present procedure of the House.

Mr. MacVEAGH: It was done in 1896.

The CHAIRMAN of WAYS and MEANS: I would suggest to the House that hon. Members would be quite within their rights in bringing forward this question, and I do not doubt, after what they have said, that various harbour boards will consider the question of whether their constitutions are capable of improvement to meet modern conditions. Certainly, if it were the occasion to debate the constitutions of the various harbour boards, it would only be necessary to quote some of the more modern ones to show that there are cases in which the constitutions are capable of improvement. But let that movement come from the localities concerned. That, I take it, is largely what the hon. Members have had in mind in bringing forward this matter at the present moment. It seems to me that it would be an action which the House of Commons would not wish to maintain to discriminate in this matter against a particular harbour board. If I am informed correctly, the franchise on which this particular harbour board is elected is, at least, as wide as most of those in Ireland or in the rest of the United Kingdom. Do not let me put it higher than that, and I beg the House not to be diverted from the consideration of this case as a matter of business.
I have myself already obtained the assent of the House to sending a number of these Harbour Bills to a Joint Committee of the Two Houses. I feel that the question which they raise ought to have rather a more deliberate consideration than would be possible under the ordinary procedure of the House. The House assented to that Motion of mine without any question, and the only matter before us now is whether or not this last of the twenty Bills should be similarly dealt with or whether it shall be thrown out now on its Second Reading. To throw it out on its Second Reading would be simply to say that we will not grant to Belfast Harbour what we have already granted to Dublin and Cork and seventeen other harbours of the United Kingdom, namely, a fair tribunal to consider whether or not they are to be entitled to raise their charges on ships and their dues for the business they transact in order that they may be equipped to deal with modern conditions. I beg the House of Commons not to make a Bill of this character the occasion for one of our old-time Debates on matters with which we are very familiar. The hon. Members have no doubt served the purpose with which they initiated the Debate. They have called attention to the fact that in their view the time is ripe, if it is not over-ripe, for an improvement to be made in the constitution of this harbour board. I hope that they will be satisfied with that, or at any rate the House will be satisfied with going so far as that, and let this Bill proceed along with the nineteen others for a consideration of the only matter which is contained in the Bill.

Mr E. CARSON: I remember once a great many years ago in this House, an eminent Irishman, having made a speech in which he moved the rejection of an important Bill, asked me after he had I made the speech, what I thought of it. I said I thought it was very good but that he might have referred to the Bill. He said to me, "How could I; I never read the beastly thing." The hon. Member opposite is in exactly that position. He does not know what the Bill is about nor does he care. The merits of the Bill have nothing to do with him whatsoever. He wants to raise the old Irish controversy upon every occasion. He wants to uphold his position as a Catholic and to be the champion in this House of the Catholics in Belfast.

Mr. MacVEAGH: They are right.

Sir E. CARSON: Well, whether they are right or wrong, I decline entirely to go into that question this evening. Every harbour board in the United Kingdom, including Waterford, Cork, and Dublin in Ireland have already applied, in exactly the same form as we have in this House, to have considered this matter of the increase of tolls on account of the increased price of labour under the harbour boards. I did not examine the Waterford Bill and the Cork Bill to see whether the majority of these boards were Sinn Feiners or Nationalists.

Captain REDMOND: The minority rule in Waterford.

Sir E. CARSON: I did not examine them. I know that the hon. Member knows all about them. I am only saying that it never occurred to me to examine any of these questions at all.

Captain REDMOND: You knew very well.

9.0 P.M.

Sir E. CARSON: The sole question is as to whether the Bill ought to be treated differently from any other Bill in the United Kingdom, or whether the House ought to declare this evening that, without having any examination before the Joint Committee, the Belfast Harbour Board ought to close down its works or reduce its labour I will leave the matter there, but I think that I ought to make one or two other observations. My first observation is this, that no shipping company which uses the harbour, nor the Corporation of Belfast as the custodian of the affairs of the people there, offer any opposition to this Bill. There is no opposition except the political or religious opposition which is offered here this evening. The hon. Member who moved the rejection spent a great deal of time in talking of the misdeeds of the harbour board in not electing Catholics on the board. The Belfast Harbour Board had no power of co-option whatever, and they could not do it even if they wanted to. When I tell the House that the franchise of the Belfast Harbour Board is far more democratic than that of any other harbour board in the United Kingdom, I think they will be somewhat astonished at the opposition of hon. Members opposite. Belfast has a constituency of 10,851 for electing the harbour board. London for its harbour board has a constituency of 4,17l, Glasgow 2,215, and Liverpool 3,500.
So that Belfast has a constituency which is larger than the combined constituencies of London, Glasgow, and Liverpool, and yet it is the only one which is being opposed here. I have here the constitution of the various harbour boards. Harbour boards, whether rightly or wrongly, have not been elected in the past upon what you would call democratic constituencies. That may be right or it may be wrong. Let me take, for instance, Southampton. In that case the number of elected members is six and the whole constituency is 147. The appointed members there are, I expect for very good reasons, one by the Admiralty, one by the War Office, one by Trinity House, one by the Board of Trade, one by the Borough Council, one by the County Council, and so on, all people who are more or less connected with the administration and business of the harbour. In the same way, in Liverpool the elected members are only twenty-four, and the qualification there is payment in the name of a British subject or a person resident in the United Kingdom not being a British subject, of not less than £10 in rates and dues on ships or goods. So that you will see that what they had in view in framing these constitutions was really an interest in the harbour itself and in the business carried on in the harbour. I expect that is why the harbours in the United Kingdom have been such a great success. What are the harbour boards to do? They are elected themselves. It is open to any Catholic to stand. I am told there have been Catholics on this harbour board. It is purely a question of selection, and no question of co-option, which would enable the harbour board to do what the hon. Member opposite says they ought to do.

Mr. DEVLIN: The right hon. Gentleman says there is no power of co-option, and yet they co-opted Sir Crawford McCullagh.

Sir E. CARSON: I do not know why they did, or, if they did, under what circumstances. Sir Crawford McCullagh was Lord Mayor. I do not know whether he came on as Lord Mayor and was kept on. But here we have simply a commercial Bill, one out of nineteen or twenty, which we ask should go with the others, and, so far as I am concerned, having stated so much to the House, I decline to be drawn into a discussion on Nationalist,
Sinn Fein, or Unionist, or Protestant, or Catholic, and I ask the House to treat this as a purely business matter.

Mr. T. P. O'CONNOR: I am sure that Members who have heard this discussion must have been a little surprised, and I think some of them at least above the Gangway on this side, I may say a little shocked. We have the right to raise this question on such a Bill as this, and I am afraid I must say to my hon. Friend the Chairman of Ways and Means, if he will pardon me, that he took a somewhat narrow view in discussing this question. It has become the practice of this House through many Sessions, and I might say through a generation, to take advantage of a proposal to this House of a concession to a railway or public board to bring before the attention of the House the particular condition under which either the railway company or the public board performed its functions. Several members of the Labour party of the past have brought forward, on railway Bills, for instance, questions regarding either wages or hours, or the recognition of a union, or other questions affecting the labouring portion of the Empire. I have known instances in which, by legitimate pressure which members of the Labour party or other parties have been able to put upon particular enterprises, either private or public, the result has been large and desirable, and just concessions to the labouring people connected with those enterprises. I myself, though I speak here as a representative of a city where we have an extremely good dock and harbour board, though elected in a rather narrow franchise, I myself, though at the moment I may in some important particulars regard myself as their chosen spokesman, have been compelled—I did it most unwillingly—to move and to obtain the rejection of a Bill brought in by that board. Why? It was not that I objected to the provisions of that Bill any more than I object to the provisions of this Bill, for it is quite right that harbour boards under the changed conditions should have the right to increase their tolls. The right hon. and learned Gentleman (Sir E. Carson), charged my hon. Friend (Mr. Devlin) with not understanding the Bill. Really after all the veriest tyro could understand the Bill since it is practically a Bill of one clause which deals with the question of raising tolls owing to war conditions.
When the Liverpool Bill to which I have just referred was brought in there was a dispute going on at the time between that board and a section of their employés. The point at issue was whether the board was ready or not ready to recognise the union amongst its employés, or in fact I believe amongst only a section of them. I did my best, and I have spent my life endeavouring to make compromises between extremes on all sides, to get the board to agree to the recognition of that union. I told them they would lose their Bill which they very badly wanted. They remained obstinate and I was compelled to oppose and to press the matter to a Division which turned out to be a success. The Bill was rejected and I believe the board, getting more sense by its defeat, did the very thing which they had hitherto refused to do. Therefore, I claim that this is a perfectly reasonable, legitimate and well proved and traditional method of bringing before the House and of obtaining if possible the reform of grievances in the constitution of the board concerned. The right hon. and learned Gentleman opposite was complimented, quite rightly, by my hon. Friend here as a master of brilliant forensic persuasion. The only brilliancy I could discover in his speech was that he carefully avoided discussing the merits of the question before the House. The merits of the question are, shall a body be given further powers, however desirable and necessary these powers may be, without that body, through its spokesman in this House giving the House some assurance that proved, incontestable evils, grievances, and inequalities in its conduct are going to be removed? It is all very fine for the right hon. and learned Gentlement to suggest that they know nothing about either the religious or the class position of the people who are associated with this board. An Irishman can say that to Englishmen with some expectation of its being believed, but he cannot say it to an Irishman with any such expectation. That form of camouflage is purely for English consumption.
It is not an accident—the right hon. and learned Gentleman knows it as well as I—that no Catholic is on this board, and it is not an accident that no Labour man is on this board. I do not want to dwell on the purely sectarian side of this question, for everybody knows there is no bitterer enemy in this House of the spirit of sectarianism than I am. I wish I could say
the same of my hon. Friends on the opposite side of the House, but it is certainly a remarkable coincidence, and so much of a coincidence that it cannot be an accident, that one-fourth of the population of a city cannot find a single representative on one of the great public and governing bodies of that city. I pass to the representation of Labour. My own opinion is this, that there is not a public board of any kind in this country which, if its controllers were wise, would not have a Labour representative on that board. Have I to argue this proposition at this time of day, with the state of feeling all over the world, including this country, that in a great public body of a great city Labour is not entitled to representation? I think I would be abusing the patience of the House if I said a further word on that point. I now ask, Is it a coincidence or is it an accident that Labour has never had representation on the Belfast Harbour Board? An hon. Gentleman said they are all workers on the board. Of course, we are all workers, but everybody knows that that is not what we mean when we use the generic term Labour What we mean by it is a man who belongs to that large mass of the people who are the workers with their hands, and therefore I cannot accept that statement of the hon. Gentleman as an answer to my ease. It is quite true, I am sure, that on this board they have some of the best business men in Belfast. I am sure they are too intelligent and too enterprising a city not to choose some of their best business men for that body, but a business man is not a worker in the sense in which we ask for representation of the Labour party. My hon. Friend read a letter. A harbour has something else to do and other people to deal with besides merely shipping and shippers. Down in my own Constituency in Liverpool most of the people there are people who earn their living on the docks of Liverpool. I do not know whether they have any representation upon the Liverpool board.

Sir E. CARSON: Is that camouflage too? It may do with Englishmen, but it will not do with an Irishman.

Mr. O'CONNOR: I never tried to fool an. Irishman in my life, but honestly I do not think there is.

Sir E. CARSON: Why do you not oppose their Bill?

Mr. O'CONNOR: I did.

Sir E. CARSON: Not this Bill.

Mr. DEVLIN: We will oppose it next time.

Mr. O'CONNOR: I am glad the House has had the unusual spectacle of an Irish Debate conducted in a good humour. I opposed and I defeated the Liverpool Port Bill on the very grounds I raise here, namely, of not acting in the proper spirit towards labour. As I said, it is quite a false and narrow conception of a harbour board to think that it has not to deal with other people besides the shippers, and with other things besides the shipping. It has to deal with the interests, with the wages, with the safety to limb and life of the large messes of people who are concerned in its working, and who do perhaps as much to its working as even the prosperous and wealthy commercial gentlemen who form the board. [Hon. Members: "More."] Hon. Gentlemen are English, and they do not understate cases, which an Irishman always does, and therefore I hold that every man who shares my opinions—and I cannot imagine any man contesting them—[An Hon. Member: "Oh"]—any rational man, any broad-minded man. I have just as much right to oppose this Bill, because of its unfair attitude to labour,

as I have to oppose a Bill from my own city, politically, which was charged with the same offence. I do not suppose we are going to defeat this Bill on a Division.

Sir E. CARSON: You would be very sorry if you did.

Mr. O'CONNOR: But I do hope that we shall get a sufficient body in the Lobby to give a warning to my friends and countrymen from Belfast that they must be a little up to date, and that they must try—I know it is an effort—to forget that we are not fighting the conflicts of the Twentieth Century on the bitter sectarian memories of the Sixteenth.

The CHAIRMAN of WAYS and MEANS: I was asked a question by the hon. Member for South Down about an Instruction, and I have since had the opportunity of looking up that question, and I find that in 1905 a proposal of that kind was submitted, and Mr. Speaker ruled that it was not competent to move an Instruction of an exactly similar character to the one that had been suggested in the Debate here. If hon. Members are curious and wish to turn to it it is on page 658 of Erskine May.
Question put, "That the word "now" stand part of the Question."

The House divided: Ayes, 176; Noes, 52.

Division No. 9.]
AYES.
[9.20 p.m.


Agg-Gardner, Sir James Tynte
Cory, J. H. (Cardiff)
Hickman, Brig.-Gen. Thomas E.


Ainsworth, Captain C.
Cozens-Hardy, Hon. W. H.
Hills, Major J. W. (Durham)


Amery, Lieut.-Col. L. C. M. S.
Craig, Col. Sir James (Down, Mid.)
Hinds, John


Archdale, Edward M.
Craik, Rt. Hon. Sir Henry
Hoare, Lt.-Col. Sir Samuel J. G.


Astbury, Lt.-Com. F. W.
Davies, Alfred Thomas (Lincoln)
Hohler, Gerald Fitzroy


Atkey, A. R.
Davies, Sir Joseph (Crewe)
Hood, Joseph


Baldwin, Stanley
Davies, T. (Cirencester)
Hope, James Fitzalan (Sheffield)


Barlow, Sir Montague (Salford, S.)
Dennis, J. W.
Hope, Lt.-Col. Sir J. (Midlothian)


Barnett, Captain Richard W.
Dockrell, Sir M.
Hopkinson, Austin (Mossley)


Barnston, Major Harry
Donald, T.
Horne, Edgar (Guildford)


Barton, Sir William (Oldham)
Edwards, A. Clement (East Ham, S.)
Howard, Major S. G.


Beauchamp, Sir Edward
Elliot, Capt. W. E. (Lanark)
Hurd, P. A.


Benn, Com. Ian Hamilton (G'nwich)
Eyres-Monsell, Com.
Hurst, Major G. B.


Betterton, H. B.
Falcon, Captain M.
Jackson, Lieut.-Col. Hon. F. S. (York)


Birchall, Major J. D.
Farquharson, Major A. C.
Jephcott, A. R.


Blades, Sir George R.
Fell, Sir Arthur
Jones, Sir Evan (Pembroke)


Borwick, Major G. O.
Fisher, Rt. Hon. Herbert A. L.
Jones, J. Towyn (Carmarthen)


Boscawen, Sir Arthur Griffith-
Foxcroft, Captain C.
Jones, Wm. Kennedy (Hornsey)


Brackenbury, Col. H. L.
Geddes, Rt. Hon. Sir A. C. (Basingstoke)
Kinloch-Cooke, Sir Clement


Broad, Thomas Tucker
Gibbs, Colonel George Abraham
Law, Rt. Hon. A. Bonar (Glasgow)


Buckley, Lt.-Col. A.
Gilmour, Lt.-Col. John
Lewis, T. A. (Pontypridd, Glam.)


Burdon, Col. Rowland
Glyn, Major R.
Lindsay, William Arthur


Burn, Col. C. R. (Torquay)
Goff, Sir R. park
Lloyd, George Butler


Carew, Charles R. S. (Tiverton)
Gould, J. C.
Locker-Lampson G. (Wood Green)


Carr, W. T.
Grayson, Lieut.-Col. H. M.
Lort-Willlams, J.


Carson, Rt. Hon. Sir Edward H.
Greame, Major P. Lloyd-
Loseby, Captain C. E.


Carter, R. A. D. (Manchester)
Green, J. F. (Leicester)
Lynn, R. J.


Cautley, Henry Strother
Griggs, Sir Peter
Lyon, L.


Cough, R.
Guinness, Lt.-Col. Hon. W. E. (B. St. E.)
M'Donald, D. H. (Bothwell, Lanark)


Coates, Major Sir Edward F.
Hacking, Captain D. H.
M'Guffin, Samuel


Cockerill, Brig.-Gen. G. K.
Hailwood, A.
M'Laren, R. (Lanark, N.)


Cohen, Major J. B. B.
Harmsworth, Cecil B. (Luton, Beds.)
M'Lean, Lt.-Col. C. W. W. (Brigg)


Collins, Col. G. P. (Greenock)
Henderson, Major V. L.
Macmaster, Donald


Compton-Rickett, Rt. Hon. Sir J.
Herbert, Dennis (Hertford)
McNeill, Ronald (Canterbury)


Mitchell, William Lane-
Raper, A. Baldwin
Ward, Col. L. (Kingston-upon-Hull)


Molson, Major John Elsdale
Raw, Lt.-Col. Dr. N.
Ward, W. Dudley (Southampton)


Mond, Rt. Hon. Sir Alfred Moritz
Rees, Sir J. D.
Watson, Captain John Bertrand


Morden, Col. H. Grant
Reid, D. D.
Weston, Col. John W.


Moreing, Captain Algernon H.
Remer, J. B.
Wheler, Col. Granville C. H.


Mosley, Oswald
Renwick, G.
Whitla, Sir William


Mount, William Arthur
Richardson, Albion (Peckham)
Whitley, Rt. Hon. John Henry


Nall, Major Joseph
Rowlands, James
Wigan, Brig.-Gen. John Tyson


Neal, Arthur
Samuel, S. (Wandsworth, Putney)
Wild, Sir Ernest Edward


Nelson, R. F. W. R.
Samuels, Rt. Hon. A. W. (Dublin Univ.)
Williams, Lt.-Com. C. (Tavistock)


Newman, Sir R. H. S. D. (Exeter)
Sanders, Colonel Robert Arthur
Williams, Col. P. (Middlesbrough)


Newton, Major Harry Kottingham
Seager, Sir William
Wilson, Rt. Hon. J. W. (Stourbridge)


Nicholson, R. (Doncaster)
Shaw, Capt. W. T. (Forfar)
Wilson, Col. Leslie (Reading)


Nicholson, W. (Petersfield)
Smithers, Alfred W.
Wilson, Col. M. (Richmond, Yorks.)


O'Neill, Capt. Hon. Robert W. H.
Sprot, Col. Sir Alexander
Wilson-Fox, Henry


Parker, James
Stanier, Capt. Sir Beville
Winterton, Major Earl


Pease, Rt. Hon. Herbert Pike
Stanley, Col. Hon. G. F. (Preston)
Wood, Sir H. K. (Woolwich, W.)


Pennefather, De Fonblanque
Steel, Major S. Strang
Wood, Sir J (Stalybridge and Hyde)


Perring, William George
Stephenson, Col. H. K.
Worsfold, T. Cato


Pickering, Col. Emil W.
Talbot, Rt. Hon. Lord E. (Chichester)
Yate, Col. Charles Edward


Pinkham, Lieut.-Col. Charles
Taylor, J. (Dumbarton)
Young, Lt.-Com. E. H. (Norwich)


Pownall, Lt.-Col. Assheton
Thompson, F. C. (Aberdeen, S.)
Young, Sir F. W. (Swindon)


Pratt, John William
Thomson, T. (Middlesbrough, W.)



Raeburn, Sir William
Turton, Edmund Russborough
TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—Mr. Moles and Captain Craig.


Ramsden, G. T.
Waddington, R.



Randles, Sir John Scurrah
Walton, J. (York, Don Valley)



NOES.


Adamson, Rt. Hon. William
Hirst, G. H.
Shaw, Tom (Preston)


Barnes, Major H. (Newcastle, E.)
Hogge, J. M.
Short, A. (Wednesbury)


Bell, James (Ormskirk)
Holmes, J. S.
Sitch, C. H.


Bowerman, Rt. Hon. C. W.
Irving, Dan
Smith, Capt. A. (Nelson and Colne)


Brown, J. (Ayr and Bute)
Johnstone, J.
Smith, W. (Wellingborough)


Cairns, John
Jones, Henry Haydn (Merioneth)
Spencer, George A.


Carter, W. (Mansfield)
Jones, J. (Silvertown)
Spoor, B. G


Clynes, Rt. Hon. J. R.
Kenyon, Barnet
Swan, J. E. C.


Davies, Alfred (Clitheroe)
Lambert, Rt. Hon. George
Taylor, J. W. (Chester-le-Street)


Davison, J. E. (Smethwick)
Lunn, William
Thomas, Brig.-Gen. Sir O. (Anglesey)


Donnelly, P.
MacVeagh, Jeremiah
Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton, E.)


Edwards, C. (Bedwellty)
Malone, Col. C. L. (Leyton, E.)
White, Charles F. (Derby, W.)


Entwistle, Major C. F.
Malone, Major P. (Tottenham, S.)
Wignall, James


Galbraith, Samuel
O'Connor, T. P.
Williams, A. (Consett, Durham)


Graham, D. M. (Hamilton)
Redmond, Captain William A.
Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton)


Graham, W. (Edinburgh)
Richardson, R. (Houghton)



Griffiths, T. (Pontypool)
Roberts, F. O. (W. Bromwich)
TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—Mr. Neil M'Lean and Mr Devlin.


Grundy, T. W.
Royce, William Stapleton



Hall, F. (Yorks, Normanton)




Question put, and agreed to.

Orders of the Day — SUPPLY [27th February].

CIVIL SERVICE SUPPLEMENTARY ESTIMATES, 1918–19.

Resolution reported,

"That a supplementary sum, not exceeding £19,770, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1919, for Expenditure in respect of Diplomatic and Consular Buildings, and for the maintenance of certain Cemeteries Abroad."

Motion made, and Question proposed,

"That this House doth agree with the Committee in the said Resolution."

Sir J. D. REES: I was not here when this Estimate was before the House last time, and I have the ignorance not to know where Elizabethville is, or why so large a sum as £6,900 is required for a now Vice-Consulate at Elizabethville. My Noble Friend the Member for Horsham (Major Earl Winterton) referred
to the fact—and I heartily agree with him—that the representatives of Great Britain abroad should be better housed than anybody else, and though, like him, I have always been a traveller, I think they are the best housed—certainly the Legations, and probably the Consulates. I do not know, however, why it is necessary to build a Vice-Consulate at Elizabethville at such a cost. Then there is no account given of what are the additions or extensions made to the Legation in Teheran. It is stated that there is additional expense due to the adverse rate of exchange and the high cost of material, but, unless some repairs or extensions are being made, there would be no necessity to refer to this. No detailsare given here of what is being done to that beautiful house and walled garden in which our representative in Persia is housed. I should be obliged if the Minister in charge would say a word.

The FIRST COMMISSIONER of WORKS (Sir Alfred Mond): I am very
sorry my hon. Friend was not here when the Estimate was up before, because he would have had an explanation of the question he asked.

Sir J. D. REES: May I assure my right hon. Friend that I have read what he said?

Sir A. MOND: Then I do not know that I can add anything really to what I said then. The existing Consulate at Elizabethvile was not erected by the Government, and, I understand, has been in a very bad condition for a long time; in fact it became uninhabitable, and was condemned by the local authorities as not fit for human habitation.

Sir J. D. REES: Who is the local authority?

Sir A. MOND: I really do not know. That is a question for the Foreign Office. I am sure my right hon. Friend does not want the Vice-Consul and the staff housed in an in sanitary building, and that is the reason why the new building was sanctioned some time ago. The excess Vote is due, as in a great many cases, to the increased cost of material. I am sorry I cannot give my hon. Friend any explanation of what work has been done at Teheran, as he has not given me notice of the question. The adverse rate of exchange and the high cost of material have operated there as in many other cases. If my hon. Friend will put down a question on the subject. I shall be glad to answer it.
Question put, and agreed to.
Resolutions reported,
That a Supplementary sum, not exceeding £19,300, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1919, for Expenditure in respect of sundry Public Buildings in Great Britain, not provided for on other Votes.
That a Supplementary sum, not exceeding £5,300, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1919, for the Survey of the United Kingdom and for minor services connected therewith.
That a Supplementary sum, not exceeding £81,500, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1919, for Rates and Contributions in lieu of Rates, etc., in respect of Government Property, and for Bates on Houses occupied by Representatives of Foreign Powers, and for the Salaries and Expenses of the Rating of Government Property Department, and for a Contribution towards the Expenses of the London Fire Brigade.
That a Supplementary sum, not exceeding £5, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1919, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries, of the Agricultural Wages Board, and of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, including certain Grants-in-Aid.
That a Supplementary sum, not exceeding £150,000, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1919, for His Majesty's Foreign and other Secret Services.
That a Supplementary sum, not exceeding £1,000, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1919, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Offices of the Chief Secretary in Dublin and London, and of the Inspectors of Lunatic Asylums, and Expenses under the Inebriates Acts.
That a Supplementary sum, not exceeding £16,000, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1919, for the Expenses of the Prisons in England, Wales, and the Colonies, including a Grant-in-Aid of certain Expenses connected with Discharged Prisoners.
That a Supplementary sum, not exceeding £57,955, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 3lst day of March, 1919, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Office of the Inspector of Reformatories, and for the Expenses of the Maintenance of Juvenile Offenders in Reformatory. Industrial, and Day Industrial Schools, and in Places of Detention under the Children Act, in Great Britain.
That a Supplementary sum, not exceeding £9,644, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1919, for the Salaries and Expenses of various County Court Officers and of Magistrates in Ireland.
That a Supplementary sum, not exceeding £9,500, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1919, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Commissioner of Police, the Police Courts, and the Metropolitan Police Establishment of Dublin.
That a Supplementary sum, not exceeding £134,105, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1919, for the Expenses of the Royal Irish Constabulary.
That a Supplementary sum, not exceeding £1,500, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1919, for the Expenses of the Maintenance of Criminal Lunatics in the Dundrum Criminal Lunatic Asylum, Ireland.
Resolutions agreed to.
Resolution reported,
That a Supplementary sum, not exceeding £225,000, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment
during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1919, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Board of Education, and of the various Establishments connected therewith, including sundry Grants-in-Aid.
Motion made, and Question proposed,
That this House doth agree with the Committee in the said Resolution.

Sir J. D. REES: Is it possible that a Vote of this character can in some way come before the House before the House is committed to it? There are probably other Members who, like myself, have serious doubts whether this expense should be charged to the British taxpayer. Would it be possible, in some way or other, for the question to be brought up so that Members might have an apportunity of expressing an opinion about it, before the House is practically committed, as it really is, to the expenditure?

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of EDUCATION (Mr. Herbert Lewis): It will doubtless be within the recollection of the House that this Vote, so far from being passed through sub silentio, as suggested by the hon. Gentleman behind me, was discussed at considerable length on the Committee stage. At that time, I think, my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Education did make a very full, clear, and detailed statement as to the nature of this expenditure. I do not know whether my hon. Friend really wishes the matter to be gone over again?

Sir J. D. REES: I said I did not. What I ventured to ask was whether it would not be possible to take the opinion of the House as to this expansion of the charges on the British taxpayer before the House is practically committed to it.
Question put, and agreed to.
Resolutions reported,
That a sum, not exceeding £12,500, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1919, for a Grant-in-Aid of the Serbian Relief Fund.
That a Supplementary sum, not exceeding £27,875, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1919, for Public Education in Scotland, and for Science and Art in Scotland.
That a sum, not exceeding £51,022, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1919, for making good the Net Loss on Transactions connected with the raising of Money for the various Treasury Chests Abroad in the year 1917–18
That a Supplementary sum, not exceeding £10, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1919, for certain Miscellaneous Expenses, including certain Charitable and other Allowances, Great Britain.
That a Supplementary sum, not exceeding £60,000, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1919, for a Grant-in-Aid of the Government Hospitality Fund.
That a Supplementary sum, not exceeding £25,000, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1919, for the Payment of Grants towards the Cost of the Extension of Sanatorium Benefit to the Dependants of Insured Persons under the National Insurance Act, 1911, and of the Treatment of Tuberculosis generally.
Resolutions agreed to.
Resolutions reported,

MINISTRY OF MUNITIONS.

"That a Supplementary sum, not exceeding £100, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1919, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Ministry of Munitions."

MINISTRY OF MUNITIONS (ORDNANCE FACTORIES).

"That a Supplementary sum, not exceeding £100, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1919, for the Expenses of the Ordnance Factories, the cost of the production of which will be charged to the Army, Navy, Ministry of Munitions, and Indian and Colonial Governments, etc."

MINISTRY OF SHIPPING.

"That a Supplementary sum, not exceeding £100, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1919, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Ministry of Shipping."

MINISTRY OF RECONSTRUCTION.

"That a sum, not exceeding £9,000, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1919, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Ministry of Reconstruction."

Orders of the Day — SUPPLY.— [3rd March.]

Resolutions reported.

ARMY ESTIMATES, 1919–20.

"That a number of Land Forces, not exceeding 2,500,000, all ranks, be maintained for the
Service of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland at Home and Abroad, excluding His Majesty's Indian Possessions, during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1920."

"That a sum, not exceeding £125,000,000, be granted to His Majesty on Account for or towards defraying the Charges for Army Services for the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1920."

Orders of the Day — MINISTRY OF HEALTH [SALARIES AND EXPENSES].

Considered in Committee.

[MR. WHITLEY in the Chair.]

Motion made, and Question proposed,

"That it is expedient to authorise the payment, out of moneys to be provided by Parliament, of an annual salary not exceeding five thousand pounds to the Minister of Health; and of such other Salaries, Remuneration, and Expenses as may become payable under the Act of the present Session to establish a Ministry of Health."

Mr. G. LOCKER-LAMPSON: Would it be in order for me, Mr. Whitley, to move to amend paragraph (3) dealing with payments to the Consultative Councils?

The CHAIRMAN: There is no paragraph (3) in this Resolution. The hon. Member is referring to the Bill. He can move his Amendment on the Bill, but not on this Resolution.

Major HILLS: Can we know whether this money is going for the payment of Consultative Councils or for the payment of secretaries and assistant-secretaries?

The CHAIRMAN: That question will be in order on the Bill. This Resolution will empower the Committee to consider that question, and it can be raised, too, on the Report of the Bill.

Mr. LOCKER-LAMPSON: On a point of Order, Mr. Whitley. Will it be possible now to discuss the question as to whether these salaries should or should not be paid to the Consultative Councils? Cannot we discuss that question on this Resolution?

The CHAIRMAN: The matter can undoubtedly be discussed either on the Committee stage of the Bill or on the Report stage. This is merely a general Resolution which gives power to the Committee to consider that question.

Major HILLS: As the House is being asked to vote a sum of money for the pay-
ment of expenses, are we not entitled to know the persons who are to receive that money?

The CHAIRMAN: The hon. and gallant Member is entitled to ask, certainly, but I do not see how it can be answered because it depends upon what the Committee upstairs does.

Mr. LOCKER-LAMPSON: On that, Mr. Whitley, I should rather like to know from the Government whether any of the money that we are asked to vote now is going to be paid to members of Consultative Councils? I gather from you that I would not be in order at the present moment in putting forward any argument to show that the members of Consultative Councils ought not to have any salaries made to them. If I were in order, I should very much like to have an answer from the Government, and to put forward certain reasons why I believe these salaries ought not to be paid to members of Consultative Councils.

Mr. BALDWIN: I think, perhaps, I may be able to put the matter in a way to satisfy my hon. Friends. The procedure of this House is, as they are aware, when a Bill is going to be introduced to make a charge on the Exchequer, that a Financial Resolution has to precede the Bill, and has to be passed in the House pro forma before the Bill can be printed. This Resolution fixes the amount payable to the Ministry of Health, and gives permission to incur other expenditure, but that expenditure is left entirely to the judgment of the House. That is the whole effect of this Resolution, and the point raised by the hon. Gentleman opposite is amply safeguarded. No one can tell except the Minister who is having the Bill drafted what the Bill will contain, and we all see the Bill for the first time when the Resolution has been reported to the House. When the Bill comes before a Committee of the House, the Minister may make what proposals he likes, and it rests with the House whether they adopt them or make any amendments they think worth while.

Major HILLS: The point is this: The Ministry of Health Bill provides for the setting up of certain Consultative Councils. The Committee is asked to vote something for the Ministry of Health, and I think we are entitled to know whether any of that money is to go for the payment of these Consultative Councils or not.

Mr. LOCKER-LAMPSON: Surely the Government have printed their Bill, and it distinctly lays down that those members of the Consultative Council are going to be paid out of the Exchequer. Can the hon. Gentleman tell us whether they are going to be paid out of the money we are asked now to vote? I think the Government must be able to tell us, because they have printed Clause 6, whether this money Resolution is for the purpose of paying members of the Consultative Councils.

Lieutenant-Colonel W. GUINNESS: I think the House as a whole ought to have some control in this matter. Unless we get the information to-night, the only authority to judge as to the way in which this money is to be spent will be a Committee upstairs. I do not think that that is a satisfactory way of dealing with finance, nor could it have been contemplated when our procedure was framed which laid down that all these forms of expenditure should be founded on a resolution passed in Committee of this House. I submit that it is a farce to pass a Resolution in Committee here unless we have some further indication of what the resolution means.

Mr. LOCKER-LAMPSON: Surely on an occasion of this sort the Minister in charge of the Bill ought to be present. I do not see how we can possibly expect to get this information unless the Minister is present.

Mr. BALDWIN: I quite recognise the force of the point which has been raised, but unfortunately both the Ministers concerned are ill. I will try and obtain this information from them, and bring up the Resolution again.

Sir EDGAR JONES: I do not think the hon. Member should have made that promise so hastily. We want to get on with this Bill, and we do not want to be blocked in this way. Unless we get this Resolution we cannot go on with the Bill.

Sir D. MACLEAN: Might I suggest if this Resolution be postponed that it does not prevent the Bill being gone on with. We all know these financial provisions are in italics in the Bill. A postponement will not prevent the progress of the Bill in the least degree. I understand the hon. Member in charge of this Resolution wishes to report Progress.

Mr. BALDWIN: Yes.

Committee report Progress; to sit again To-morrow.

The remaining Order was read and postponed.

Orders of the Day — SIR HENRY MacMAHON.

Whereupon Mr. SPEAKER, pursuant to the Order of the House of 12th February, proposed the Question, "That this House do now adjourn."

Major Earl WINTERTON: I wish to raise the case of Sir Henry MacMahon, formerly High Commissioner in Egypt. I should like to make a few observations of a personal character. I may say that Sir Henry MacMahon is quite unknown to me personally, and I have never seen him or exchanged any words with him. I am raising this question because, having had a longer residence in the Middle East than other hon. Members, I have come into possession of certain facts which have convinced me that this gentleman who filled one of the most important administrative positions under the Crown from 1914 to 1916 has been treated with very scant consideration, and I consider that it is in the public interest that there should be a statement of the facts made ill the House of Commons. The facts are these: In the autumn of 1914–15, as a result of the late Lord Kitchener having been made Secretary for War, a vacancy arose in the representation of His Majesty in Egypt. Up to that time the representative of His Majesty in Egypt had been a Consul-General, and simultaneously with Lord Kitchener's acceptance of the Secretary ship of War it was decided to create a British Protectorate and appoint a High Commissioner there and Sir Henry MacMahon was selected for the post. Sir Henry had a most distinguished record of service under the Government of India, and at the time he was selected he was Foreign Secretary to the Viceroy. At the time he took up office it was made clear that the appointment was not to be a temporary one.
10.0 P.M.
I should like to refer for a moment to what happened immediately after Sir Henry accepted office as High Commis-
sioner in Egypt. I suppose there never has been a period in the rather turbulent history of Egypt during the last 100 years in which there was more risk of serious disturbance than there was from the autumn of 1914 to the late winter of 1916. The Turks made an actual attack on the canal defences, which is not generally known, and they almost succeeded in crossing the canal. It is well known that both the civil and military authorities in that country were very much exercised in their minds by the grave evidence there was that there were in the country agitators and sympathisers with the Turks, many of them of Turkish birth, who were ready to rise. It is a fact which has never been made public, though it is perfectly well known that there was a large seizure of rifles, and I believe of machine-guns in Cairo itself. During all that critical time, with a new form of government, because the British Protectorate did constitute a new form of government, with a Sultan for the first time, the Khedive very properly having been deposed, with great doubt existing in the mind of the population as to what was going to be the result of the War, with a good deal of hidden sympathy with Turkey, the man who was called upon to govern Egypt, because that in effect was what Sir Henry MacMahon was called upon to do, had a task scarcely less onerous than that of the Viceroy of India. The Gallipoli campaign was taking place, and, of course, in the East rumours not only spread quickly, but men's minds are easily influenced by other events. The effect of the Gallipoli campaign upon public feeling in Egypt was very considerable, and there were times of grave anxiety for anyone who was responsible for the government of Egypt. It is equally true that during the short two years that Sir Henry MacMahon was High Commissioner, in spite of all these difficulties that he and the Government had to deal with, Egypt was never more prosperous. All these difficulties were overcome, and the serious danger that there was at one time that we might have to send a number of additional troops there when troops could hardly be spared anywhere was avoided, and I say, without very strong evidence to the contrary, and such evidence has not yet been forthcoming, a very considerable measure of credit must be given to Sir Henry
MacMahon for his conduct of affairs. I make myself responsible for the statement that during these two years no official exception was taken to Sir Henry's conduct of affairs in any dispatch or communication sent to him by the Foreign Office.
What happened in the autumn of 1916? Without any previous warning of any kind, Sir Henry was recalled by telegram from Egypt. He was informed for the first time that the appointment which he held was a temporary one. I said that he had been treated with scant courtesy, because notification of his successor appeared in the "Gazette" before he had time to communicate with the Foreign Office by dispatch in the ordinary way. The telegram cordially thanked Sir Henry for all that he had done, but stated that His Majesty desired a man who was better acquainted with Egyptian affairs to settle matters in that country after the War. At the same time Sir Henry was promised an honour. Sir Henry, of course, was succeeded by Sir Reginald Wingate, and, as a very old friend of Sir Reginald Wingate, I should be the last person to suggest that he was not a very admirable man for the post. Probably the best man that could have been found. If it was necessary to have a man who was acquainted with Egyptian affairs, why was not Sir Reginald Wingate appointed immediately after Lord Kitchener was recalled? Why was Sir Henry MacMahon dragged—it is the only word that I can use—from his very distinguished career in India and put into a position which he certainly did not seek, but which the Government of that time said it was necessary that he should fill in the interests of the security of that country? I would emphasise again what I have already said, that his career in India was a distinguished one. I have had an opportunity of meeting several people, including a General Officer who had official dealings with Sir Henry, and they all tell me he was looked upon in that country as a very rising man, and one who was destined to hold high office for many years to come. I should like further to say, as regards his recall, that it created something approaching a sensation in Egypt at the time. Everybody said there must be some reason for such a hasty recall, and the most ridiculous rumours were abroad in the country, among both Europeans and Egyptians, as to the reasons for the recall. No doubt Sir Henry's reputation suffered great damage from the very hasty and inconsiderate nature of the recall.
Now comes what I think is almost the worst part of the whole case. Sir Henry returned to England; he was well under the official age limit for the Indian Public Service, but since he came back, although there has never been in any document any censure of his conduct as High Commissioner in Egypt—since his return to England ha has never been given, by the Foreign or India Office, employment of any sort. He was for two years in Egypt, and during the time he was High Commissioner, acting, as representative of His Majesty, he was naturally put to great personal expense, much greater than he would have been put to had he remained at his post in India, for in the circumstances of the time he had of necessity to keep up considerable state in Egypt. Had he remained in the office for nearly another year, he would have been entitled to the ordinary diplomatic pension which every man who fills a similar position receives. The point was, I believe, raised, and it was said that as he had not been there for the three years, he could not be granted this pension. He therefore gets no pension in respect of his services in Egypt, although he receives one for his great services in India; but that is no compensation for having had his Indian career violently disturbed by being sent to Egypt, not at his own wish, but practically by the orders of the Government. I do not want to detain the House longer. I will only make one further observation upon the case. I would like to say to my hon. Friend who represents the Foreign Office that many people in Egypt—and although the affairs of Egypt may not interest this House, they are likely to play an important part in the British Empire—many people are curious to know who is the adviser of the Foreign Office on Egyptian matters, because some very remarkable acts of policy have been done during the last three years. I said Sir Henry had received less than justice in the treatment he has got from the Foreign Office, and it is difficult to understand the apparently harsh terms meted out to him, as compared with the very kind treatment accorded to other distinguished men in Egypt, including Sir A. Murray. It would seem as if there is a lot of blinking and nodding at Whitehall. I submit that the advice which has been tendered as regards the Government of Egypt has been bad advice, and I submit, further, that the only just course for the Government to pursue is that the whole case as regards Sir Henry should be re-
considered by the Foreign Secretary, and that all the facts should be taken into consideration, especially the fact that since Sir Henry's occupancy of the post of High Commissioner a new form of Government has been built upon a basis which, in my opinion, is the greatest credit not only to the late Lord Kitchener, but to Sir Henry MacMahon as well.

The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Mr. Cecil Harmsworth): I have no complaint to make of my Noble Friend for raising this question in the House. It is quite obviously the privilege of this House, and its duty, to criticise the Departments of State if the House thinks that the Departments have not been discharging their functions satisfactorily. But it will be recognised that a question of this kind is one of very peculiar difficulty. The Minister who has to reply must be very careful that he does not do less than justice to his Department, and even more careful that he should not do anything like injustice to the distinguished public servant who is the subject of the discussion. The House will therefore bear with me, I am sure, and excuse me if I speak with circumspection and if I confine my remarks within very narrow limits. I do not complain of the tone of my Noble Friend, nor, in the main, of his description of the historical aspects of this case. It is within the knowledge of every Member of this House, I believe, that Sir Henry MacMahon had a very distinguished career in India. As my Noble Friend says, he reached the high position of Foreign Secretary to the Government of India. He was then summoned to the important and difficult position of the first High Commissioner of Egypt. He was recalled from that position by my Noble Friend Lord Grey of Falloden. My Noble Friend the Member for Horsham (Earl Winterton) spoke of Sir Henry being superseded in circumstances which displayed very scant courtesy and very little consideration. I appeal to those Members of this House who had the privilege of being Members of the House when Lord Grey was Foreign Secretary—indeed, I can appeal to every Member who knows the late Secretary of State by reputation to bear me out in saying that lack of courtesy is the last quality anyone could think of ascribing to that very distinguished statesman. One error in statement I think my Noble Friend made, no doubt quite unintentionally. He said it was made clear to Sir Henry by Lord
Grey that the appointment was not a temporary one. My Noble Friend is misinformed in reference to that; at least, I have seen no documents which could bear that description. In point of fact, the appointment was regarded as temporary.

Earl WINTERTON: Does my hon. Friend say that in any document received by Sir Henry at the time there was any statement that the appointment was a temporary one? I base what I say on the verbal instructions received by Sir Henry.

Mr. HARMSWORTH: I want to be very exact. Sir Henry himself was obviously aware that, in a limited sense, at all events, the appointment must be regarded as temporary, because I think he was aware—at least, I know he was aware—that that appointment was regarded as one to which the late Lord Kitchener might return, if he wished to do so, after his term of office at the War Office. It is true, I think, to say that Sir Henry did not regard the appointment as temporary in any other respect, but it was regarded by the Secretary of State as temporary, and I think he so informed Sir Henry in the telegram in which he was recalled. Sir Henry was aware that in regard to one person his appointment must be regarded as temporary.
On the question of courtesy it has been my duty to read the telegram in which Sir Henry was recalled. Lord Grey explained that in the very difficult circumstances of Egypt, circumstances which were difficult not only during Sir Henry's term of office but afterwards, in his judgment it was necessary to have someone in that position who had special experience and knowledge of the country and of the people and the complicated problems connected with them, and he pointed out that the then Sirdar's knowledge of Egypt was of such a kind as to make him peculiarly qualified to fill the position of High Commissioner. It is no disparagement in the slightest degree to Sir Henry MacMahon's record that his experience has not lain in Egypt and that he had not, and I sure never claimed, that special knowledge of Egypt which in Lord Grey's opinion was essential to anyone who was to occupy for the full term the position of High Commissioner. If I treat this matter with brevity the House will realise, I am sure, that it is not in any discourtesy to my Noble Friend or out of any disregard for
the real importance of this matter. Sir Henry was rewarded for his undoubted services in Egypt. My Noble Friend has referred to the offer of an honour. Sir Henry MacMahon was created, in virtue of his services to Egypt, a grand cross of the Order of St. Michael and St. George. I do-not think it can be said that his services were altogether without recognition. I have nothing more to say. There is, in point of fact, nothing else to be said. I am very diffident of pursuing the topic, lest by a clumsy expression or a maladroit word I should do less than justice to either side in a very difficult and delicate matter. Sir Henry MacMahon's record stands for itself, and is one for which I have the very highest respect.

Lieutenant-Colonel Sir S. HOARE: I came down with a perfectly open mind to listen to the statement of the case, and I am not satisfied with the answer which has been made By the Under-Secretary. The Noble Lord made three charges with reference to Sir Henry MacMahon's dismissal; it seems to me that none of those charges has been met. In the first place, my Noble Friend said that Sir Henry MacMahon was under the impression that the appointment was not a temporary one. The Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs says that he should have known it was a temporary appointment, because he was informed that it was a temporary appointment when he was actually recalled. Well, that seems to me rather late in the day. Moreover, the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs says it was always well understood that if Lord Kitchener desired to return to Egypt the post would be held open to him. Well, supposing that Lord Kitchener had so desired, it would have been a very different state of affairs to that which actually took place under which Sir Henry MacMahon was recalled after two years. Whereas, supposing Lord Kitchener's life had not been prematurely cut short, it is legitimate to suppose that he would have remained Secretary of State for War for two years longer, and that at any rate Sir Henry MacMahon would have been two years longer left in Egypt and would have go this pension. My Noble Friend also stated that lack of courtesy was shown to Sir Henry MacMahon. It does not seem to me that the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs has really met that charge.
He stated that no one in this House would dream that Lord Grey would ever have been guilty of discourtesy. Nobody could dream of such a thing; it was not the charge of the Noble Lord at all. The charge of the Noble Lord was that Sir Henry MacMahon was informed of his recall by telegram, and was given no opportunity to make any observation upon his recall until he actually saw the name of his successor stated in the paper. That does seem to me to show a grave lack of courtesy in dealing with a very distinguished public servant.
The Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs said it was necessary to send a High Commissioner to Egypt with special knowledge of Egypt. Surely, it was just as necessary at the critical moment when Sir Henry MacMahon went to Egypt, probably the most critical moment in the history of our relations with Egypt, as it was two years afterwards, when a great many of the difficulties and dangers were already passed. I personally am not satisfied that the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, has answered these three charges, and I would urge him to reconsider the request of the Noble Lord, and again to consider the case. He says that Sir Henry MacMahon has been given the Grand Cross of the Order of St. Michael and St. George. That seems to me to be no recompense whatever for a public servant, who has given most distinguished service to the State in India and in Egypt during a most critical time. I do not know what is the financial position of Sir Henry MacMahon in reference to his pension, but I feel most strongly that those two years during which he served in Egypt at a most critical time should not be forgotten, and that he should suffer in no way financially from having his Indian career cut short several years below the time during which he might have served the State in India. I have no special knowledge of this case at all. The knowledge I have has been obtained in Debate this evening, but, in view of what has been said by my Noble Friend and by the Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs, I do think that many Members of this House would like to see this case reconsidered, as they feel that a very distinguished public servant has been treated with a lack of that fairness and that justice to which his past career entitled him.

Sir H. CRAIK: In the course of a long Parliamentary experience I have never heard a more weak and unsatisfactory answer to a question put to the Government than that of the hon. Gentleman. There is more than a mere personal question involved in this. What has been the nature of the advice given in regard to Egyptian affairs? It is surprising that a man with full knowledge of Egyptian affairs was not earlier placed in this post. What was the influence that prevented the selection at an earlier date of Sir Reginald Wingate? Why was it that on the early occasion the full necessity of a thorough acquaintance with Egyptian affairs, such as is possessed by Sir Reginald Wingate, was not fully appreciated, and that this only came at a later date?
Then with regard to the temporary nature of the appointment—if it was only temporary, why was not Sir Henry MacMahon allowed to keep his position in India and return to it when his work in Egypt was finished? If a public servant is lent to another service as a temporary matter his original employment ought to be kept open for him. This is not the way in which His Majesty's Government ought to treat old and trusted Civil servants. Whatever may have been the words used and the courtesy shown in framing a particular telegram is a matter which has nothing to do with the question. The question here is the position of a distinguished English Civil servant. If he was asked to occupy a temporary appointment in Egypt, then at the end of that temporary employment he ought to have had an opportunity of returning to his position in India. Are you to end a man's career when he is in possession of all his faculties and exercising very important functions? Are you to ask him, for your convenience, to take certain employment, and after two years to put him on the shelf and leave him unemployed? That is a matter which goes very much deeper than the mere question of trying to explain a particular date or the words that were understood to show the temporary nature of the employment. If the employment was temporary, then Sir Henry MacMahon ought to have an opportunity of taking up his own work and carrying on his career, and ought not, without due reason, to be laid aside prematurely, while the public loses a valuable servant.

Mr. MacVEAGH: It is pretty obvious that this case is not one which can possibly be left where it stands at present. I knew nothing at all about the case until I heard the Noble Lord opposite open the question, but there are two points on which I would like to have some light. The first is, What is Sir Henry MacMahon's present financial position; what are his pension rights and how have they been affected? The second question is, What use is being made of his remarkable public capacity which we have heard described to-night? This country has passed through a very grave crisis in the past few years, and positions were found for a great many gentlemen, some good and some bad, and a very large proportion indifferent. They were placed in positions of great responsibility and power; and when I heard my right hon. Friend describe the very distinguished public career of Sir Henry MacMahon I could not help asking, Has no use been made of his services, and, if not, why not? It is a case that, altogether, seems to me invested with some mystery, and leaves a rather unpleasant taste in the mouth. There is something at the back of it which the House has not been told. I would appeal to the right hon. Gentleman to note what, I think, is the general sense of the House to-night, that this case is one which deserves further investigation, and that the House should be told what recognition has been made, or is going to be made, of the distinguished public career of Sir Henry MacMahon, and, in the second place, what is his position to-day with regard to pension.

Mr. HARMSWORTH: I can only speak again by permission of the House. Two hon. Members have suggested that there was some mystery about this case. I do not know what kind of mystery they are thinking of, but I can assure them that there is nothing whatever mysterious about the case. I have had every opportunity of going into the subject, and have made myself master of all the details. There is nothing whatever mysterious about the matter, and my hon. Friends can dismiss that point from their minds. One of my hon. Friends said that Sir Henry MacMahon only saw the name of his successor announced in the Press, and before he heard of his own supersession.

Sir S. HOARE: What I did say was that he had no opportunity of making any ob-
servations on the telegram recalling him before he saw the name of his successor in the Press.

Mr. HARMSWORTH: I beg the hon. Member's pardon. As a matter of fact, the name of his successor was indicated in the telegram which recalled him. I do not think that I made myself clear on the point of this being a temporary position, but the facts are as I state, that Sir Henry MacMahon knew that the appointment was temporary. In so far as Lord Kitchener might after his term of office at the War Office be disposed to go back, and as everybody knows Lord Kitchener had a very remarkable liking for Egypt. There is no doubt whatever that in the mind of the Secretary of State the appointment was always regarded as a temporary one. Whether that fact was indicated to Sir Henry I do not know, but in Lord Grey's time it was always regarded as a temporary appointment. One hon. Member asked why it was that Sir Henry's position in India was not kept open for him. I find the affairs of one Department quite enough for me at present, and I would suggest if hon. Members wish to pursue that matter the question should be asked of the India Office. I have no information on that subject myself. My hon. Friend opposite (Mr. MacVeagh) asked what was Sir Henry's financial position, meaning of course his financial position as a pensioner under the State. Sir Henry is in receipt of his full pension from the Government of India. I have no other particulars on that head. It has been suggested that I should reconsider the whole of this question. May I say this, that I will at least—and I can say no more—submit this discussion to the particular notice of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State in Paris and to my Noble Friend the Acting Secretary of State. The House will not expect me I am sure to take any further steps in this matter.

Major HILLS: I quite agree that the House is not satisfied with the explanation which has been offered, and I most earnestly press my hon. Friend to inquire further into the reason for the recall of Sir Henry and into the treatment that he has received in respect of his pension. All I ask for is an inquiry. It is a case of a very distinguished public servant who has had his career broken for no ostensible reason at all, and there he is on the shelf, and we ought to know the reason why. I
press the Government most strongly, and I am sure they will gain and not lose if they give way on this point to what I believe is the unanimous wish of all the Members present here to-night.

Mr. DEVLIN: I gather that this public servant has been treated not only unfairly but with some discourtesy, and I take advantage of this discussion to make a protest against the method by which public servants who are no longer needed are treated by the present Administration. I read the other day in an Irish newspaper where the Minister for Agriculture declared that the first he knew of his dismissal from the position which he occupied was when his successor walked into the office, and I understand that the late Lord
Lieutenant of Ireland never knew he was dismissed at all. I do not know whether this is the code of courtesy which has been adopted by the present Coalition Ministry, but I think that, whether there is genuine complaint or not against a public servant, especially if he has been dismissed as a matter of policy, the least that might be done is that he shall be treated with a courtesy which even a crossing-sweeper would be entitled to. Nothing that I say can have much effect on the Government, but I trust my intervention will teach them official manners.

Adjourned accordingly at Twenty-one minutes before Eleven o'clock.